By Peter Ewart

When Minister of Forests Steve Thomson put forward the Mid-Term Timber Supply Action Plan in October of 2012, he made a pledge “to work closely with communities, First Nations and industry in a fair, open and transparent manner.”  According to him, the Action Plan was supposedly based on the recommendations of the all-party Special Committee on Timber Supply, which had toured the province gathering broad input from the public.

Specifically, the Minister’s Action Plan claimed that the Special Committee on Timber Supply had recommended “the conversion of existing volume-based [forest] licenses to area-based licenses.”  On this basis, four months later (February 2013), the Clark government tabled legislation amending the Forest Act to “convert volume-based forest licenses to area-based tree farm licenses at the minister’s invitation.”  All a company would have to do to carry out such a rollover to a TFL would be describe to the Minister why it “would be in the best interests of the public,” and to make its application available for a set period of time for “public review and comment.”  The Minister would then make his decision.  

Thus in one fell swoop, the most sweeping changes to forest tenure in the province in many decades was launched.  But could the process and its conclusions regarding forest licensing be characterized as being carried out in a “fair, open and transparent manner” like the Minister claims?

Let’s look at what the Special Committee on Timber Supply originally recommended.  It said that, given the history of area-based tenure management, the government should “gradually increase the diversity of area-based tenures, using established criteria for conversion and a walk-before-you-run approach.”

Besides this hyper-cautious approach, the Special Committee further recommended a takeback-volume provision “or some equivalent public benefit” and reallocating that volume to First Nation and / or community area-based tenures.”  In addition, before considering a conversion of a licensee’s [i.e. company] renewable volume-based tenures, a rigorous evaluation process of the licensee’s past performance, commitment to sustainable forest management, etc. must take place, along with an evaluation of “community and First Nations support for conversion through a process of public consultation.”

Was it really “fair, open and transparent” to strip these serious cautions and qualifications from the original recommendation and give the impression in the Minister’s Action Plan that the Special Committee on Timber Supply was calling for full speed ahead on “the conversion of existing volume-based [forest] licenses to area-based licenses”?

Was it really fair for the government to then draft legislation supposedly based on this stripped down and adulterated recommendation, and twist it into legislation (the infamous Bill 8) that would “create the ability to convert volume-based forest licenses to area-based tree farm licenses at the minister’s invitation”?

It is well-known that certain big forest companies (but not all) desperately want to convert their vast forest licenses into tree farm licenses.  In that light, it is interesting to see how the original Special Committee on Timber Supply recommendation morphed into – behind closed doors – legislation that would amount to a huge gift to a few big forest companies.

In any case, last February when the government put forward its rollover tree farm legislation, widespread opposition erupted across the province, causing the government to withdraw it suddenly in March 2013.  At that time, Forest Minister Steve Thomson said:  “This is an important piece of public policy, however, it has become clear to me that greater public engagement is needed before legislative amendments can proceed.” (250 News, March 12, 2013)

Over the rest of 2013, the government appeared to play a game of peek-a-boo regarding the proposed public engagement.  Rumours abounded and Premier Clark herself was vague and equivocal about what kind of engagement was taking place or was in the offing.

However, in February of 2014, the Ministry of Forests unveiled its Service Plan for 2014-2017, and like a bad penny, the forest licensing issue was back.  This time around, the plan apparently is “to begin public consultation on legislation that would allow the conversion of volume-based licenses to area-based licenses.”

What does this all mean?  So far, it remains a mystery.  Is the government aiming to push through forest license / TFL rollovers again or is it backing off and adopting the “walk-don’t-run approach?” Indeed, many feel that the entire process since the release of the Timber Supply report in 2012 has been a far cry from the “fair, open and transparent manner” promised in in the Ministry’s Action Plan.  Policy analyst Anthony Britneff wonders whether the Clark government has been, once again, “stringing the public along with the intention of just ramming legislation through the House.”

There is good reason for such a concern because that is exactly what the government tried (unsuccessfully) to do in the Spring of 2013.  Although it withdrew the legislation before the May election and promised further public engagement, such a pledge doesn’t mean much, given the Liberal government’s track record of saying one thing before an election and doing another thing afterwards (the BC Rail and HST fiascos being notorious examples).

Former Independent MLA Bob Simpson believes a large part of the problem lies in the fact that there are major divisions within the Clark government over the TFL issue, as well as within the ranks of the big forest companies.  For example, on the one hand, West Fraser Mills, Hampton Affiliates, and a few other companies, each for their own particular interest, want to rollover their forest licenses into lucrative tree farm licenses.  On the other hand, Canfor, Interfor, Tolko and others oppose the rollover idea because, it would mean too much trouble and expense for them in terms of forest management, given the degraded nature of much of their existing forest licenses.  This is likely why the Council of Forest Industry (COFI), which represents the major forest companies, is saying that tree farm licenses may only be suitable for some areas of the province.

But even the COFI compromise poses a problem.  According to Simpson, any move to roll over forest licenses into TFLs in the Interior will create a domino effect, with Canfor and others having to follow suit under the fear of being left out of the pickings.  As CommonsBC points out, “once the first [rollover to TFL] happens, there will be a ‘gold rush’ because each corporation is faced with lowered  Allowable Annual Cuts (AAC) in the timber supply areas because of the huge hit to the standing inventory of pine by the mountain pine beetle.”  Thus, if the corporations want to maintain their AAC, the pressure will be on to dramatically expand the size of their TFL holdings into tens or hundreds of thousands of hectares, something which only a few big corporations will realistically be able to do.

The end result could be much or most of BC’s productive forest land under the thumb of a few large globalized companies, with communities, workers, First Nations, contractors, small and medium forestry operations, environmentalists, tourist operators and others on the outside.  In the end, according to Anthony Britneff, it is the smaller holders of renewable and non-renewable forest licenses such as First Nations, community forests, and small and mid-size operators who will take the falldown hit in the Allowable Annual Cut.  “There simply is not enough timber to allow the government to reissue non-renewable licences of which First Nations’ groups are the main holders,” he says.  Thus, First Nations, communities and smaller operators will take the loss of timber cut “right between the eyes.”

All of this is not to say that area-based forest licenses do not have merit.  For example, community forest agreements (CFAs), small woodlot licenses, and First Nations Woodland licenses, are all area-based licenses and have a lot of support across the province.  The problem has been that the provincial government has taken general support for area-based licensing and twisted it into support for TFLs, which many feel serve the interests of only one sector of the forest industry, the big companies (and only just some of these).  According to Britneff, it also confuses the fact that Timber Supply Areas already operate under a form of area-based management, i.e. the difference is that it is under government rather than corporate control.

What shines through again and again from the original Special Committee on Timber Supply Report and from the many submissions to it, is that British Columbians want serious input on forest policy and what happens to our public forests.  The interests of all sectors of the forest industry, of communities and of the population as a whole must be taken into account.

To capture that, we don’t need lip service to a “fair, open and transparent process.”  We don’t need peek-a-boo politics or surprise attacks.  We need proper, inclusive input mechanisms and clear answers about what “public engagement” truly means.

Peter Ewart is a columnist and writer based in Prince George, British Columbia.  He can be reached at: peter.ewart@shaw.ca