Comments on Draft Biomass…

Comments on Draft Biomass Action Plan

June 18, 2021

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on Ontario’s Draft Forest Biomass Action Plan (ERO # 019-3514 Notice type - Policy, Posted by Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry)

The respondents agree that there is a need for action to generate jobs and improve forest management. Overall we found that the draft action plan was in need of more specific actions that will be directed at specific policy areas of biomass. These are as follows:

Overview comments:
1) Provide local incentives to use biomass.
a Companies in central Ontario need specific Biofibre “actions” to deal with a different forest type
and smaller company size.
b Fund merchandising areas to provide more effective product sorting and direction between
operators and between different SFLs is appropriate.

2) Fix pricing / scaling to reflect the actual market conditions.
a Currently biofibre is not a viable market because of distorted prices for low end fibre.
b Cross province pricing is not realistic given local supply variability.
c Ensure that all loads going to biomass facilities are charged at a low rate.
d Biomass fibre should be charged at zero currently, given a negligible market.

3) Incentives should be directed to the forest sector specifically.
a Provincial government grants directed to supporting the establishment of new businesses or
business growth, (such as but not only NOHFC), should have a forest sector funding stream (vs
those requests being considered amongst the mix of all other business sector requests) .

4) Current tenure constraints are systemic problems that need to be addressed before any actions will
be successful.
a Loosen commitment and facility license constraint to allow new entrants (as per Tenure
Modernization Act 2010).