There is no justification…

There is no justification for using public money to “reduce costs for the forest sector.”(1) Lowering taxes, building access roads, reducing electricity rates, providing technical analysis with LiDAR(2), are subsidies to an industry that should stand on its own, rather than rely upon tax dollars from government.

The mentions of habitat in A Blueprint for Success: Ontario’s Forest Sector Strategy (Draft) are perfunctory and lack detail. It is highly likely that the productivity boosting strategy described in this document, as well as the stated goal of “regulatory burden relief”(3) would do net damage habitat on which wildlife depends.

Under the chapter entitled Responding to Climate Change, the strategy states “trees capture and store carbon dioxide”(4), used to support the plan to “promote the used of renewable forest biomass... as an energy source to provide heat...” The 2019 IPCC report Climate Change and Land indicated that the “production and use of biomass for bioenergy can have... adverse side effects, and risks for land degradation... GHG emissions...” in addition to potential benefits. These risks factors are not acknowledged by the strategy.

1. A Blueprint for Success: Ontario’s Forest Sector Strategy (Draft), p. 21
2. Ibid., p. 23
3. Ibid., p. 22
4. Ibid., p. 30
5. https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2019/08/4.-SPM_Approved_Microsi…