QUEBEC REPORT: Quebec Lays the Foundations of a New Forestry Program
by Audrey Harvey, Communications Coordinator, AETSQ. Translated by David Hayne

2007 was definitely an outstanding year for forestry in Quebec! We had the Summit on the Future of the Forestry Sector in Quebec, at which stakeholders in the milieu agreed that it was time to turn things around and get the industry back on the rails.

The year 2008 began in the same vein when the Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife, Claude Béchard, issued his long awaited Green Paper. This document contains a series of proposals designed to shape the future forestry regime in Quebec, to take effect in April 2013. In the Green Paper, the government sets out five major objectives:

1. Provide Quebec with a real industrial development strategy and timber growth policy.
2. Increase Quebec’s forestry heritage in a context of integrated resource management and sustainable development.
3. Grant regions new responsibilities for the management of forests on government lands. 
4. Offer companies the possibility of protecting part of their stocks and of creating a competitive market for timber from forests on government lands.
5. Give assurance that forestry management takes account of the reality of climate change.

These five objectives are supported by nine guidelines that indicate more precisely the direction in which the government seeks to move Quebec’s foresters:

• Encourage the development of resources by zoning the forestry territory. This means dedicating portions of the territory to protected areas, to ecosystem management, and to intensive silviculture.

• Refocus the role of the Ministry on its fundamental responsibilities, namely strategic concerns and assuring consistency throughout the province.

• Give regional officials responsibility for management of forests on government lands. It should be noted, however, that this guideline gives rise to a number of queries, because the regional entity in question is not defined, nor are its specific responsibilities.

• Entrust the carrying out of forestry activities to certified management companies. By this measure, the Ministry states that it wants to “recognize the forest management industry as a major agent in the operational planning and carrying out of forestry activities, in order to improve their quality.”

• Encourage forestry administration to be focused on the achievement of sustainable results and the transfer of responsibilities to administrators and planners. Here too, since these responsibilities derive from the role played by the regions, it is difficult to measure the importance of this proposal. But ideally, it should give forestry professionals greater decision-making power.

• Ensure a stable stock of forestry products by establishing priority rights. This is a major measure for the forestry industry. In practical terms, the present holders of CAAF contracts would receive rights and would have priority in purchasing, at the market price, a specific volume of public timber. This volume would correspond to 75% of their present volume.

• Establish a competitive market for timber coming from forests on government lands. Simply put, that means that the remaining 25% of the available volumes would be auctioned. A sales office for public land timber could be set up to handle the transactions.

• Create a silvicultural investment fund to finance intensive silviculture. This is clearly a measure that affects us directly. Since 2002, the AETSQ has been urging the government to establish such a fund to ensure the stability of silvicultural activities.

• Provide a strategy of industrial development based on value-added products. This is a move to promote the use of forestry material in non-residential construction and to encourage product diversification.
As can be seen, we have a heavy agenda again this year. Consultations are already taking place in the various regions. The Minister would like to draft legislation in June as a preamble to holding a parliamentary commission in the fall. If everything takes place as expected, the draft legislation would be adopted next December. Is this too fast? We have only a few months to rebuild a regime that has taken years to become established. The train is leaving; we must get aboard!

Full information is available in both English and French at http://www.consultation-regime-forestier.gouv.qc.ca/.