Premier Ford, and Minister…

Premier Ford, and Minister Yakabuski:

On behalf of the City of Kenora, thank you for the opportunity to comment on A Blueprint for Success: Ontario’s Forestry Sector Strategy Draft. We recognize the value and significance of forestry to the Kenora economy and offer the following comments for your consideration.

The City of Kenora 2016-2020 Strategic Plan prioritizes continued support for investment readiness in the forestry sector as a corporate action to enable economic growth. In particular, this goal identifies opportunities related to new housing construction growth and improved conditions for wood fibre building materials. In this regard, the City of Kenora is supportive of the Province’s priority to promote forest product innovation and diversification. Kenora is home to Weyerhaeuser’s TimberStrand mill – a producer of laminated strand lumber. This facility employs over 200 individuals at its Kenora location. As such, the priority identified by the Province is very relevant to our community.

The strategy also identifies Building Resilience to Manage Business Uncertainties as an opportunity to pursue and indicates that 96 percent of Ontario’s wood products exports are destined for the US. Further, the strategy states: “Ontario’s dependency on exports to the U.S. is both a great advantage when prices and demand are strong, and trade is open and fair, and a major challenge when they are not.” The City of Kenora is supportive of any efforts to build resiliency to withstand these fluctuations. The City has recently been impacted as a result of said fluctuations with the idling of Kenora Forest Products which has affected over 100 employees in the community.

Northern Ontario communities rely on our forests for local economies and job creation, but our forests are also one of the most powerful tools we have to mitigate climate change impacts through carbon capture. It is evident that our Province has begun to realize this. The draft forestry strategy promises to “work with industry to further increase carbon storage in forests and harvested wood products” and it suggests that forest biomass can “potentially both heat and power northern, rural and Indigenous communities.” What is lacking in the strategy, is identifying “responding to a changing climate” as an immediate goal and not just a “future action area”. “Ensuring steps are being taken to help Ontario’s forests adapt to a changing climate” should not be listed as a 2030 goal.

In September 2019, the City of Kenora joined more than 800 local councils, which included more than 30 Ontario municipalities that declared a climate emergency. The impacts of climate change are already being felt across the globe through rising temperatures, shifting rain patterns, increased storm intensity and rising sea levels. In Ontario, annual temperatures have increased by as much as 1.4 degrees since 1948 and in the summer months, the magnitude and frequency of heavy rain and strong wind events will increase, likely causing flash flooding and severe storms. Wildfire episodes will also intensify and climate change could introduce other risks such as vector-borne disease and invasive species. It is abundantly clear that in the face of climate change, the future of the forestry sector is facing unprecedented challenges.

While planning to deal with climate change impacts is important, it needs to be coupled with action. We are asking that the final strategy make climate change an immediate and major priority area.

Thank you again for the opportunity to provide comment on A Blueprint for Success: Ontario’s Forestry Sector Strategy Draft.

Sincerely,

Mayor Dan Reynard