My comments are made based…

My comments are made based on a few notes made as I read your strategy. It should be of note that I recently retired as a Registered Professional Forester who worked mainly in the Forest Industry and also in the MNRF in Northwestern Ontario.

Your concern over the loss of jobs in the Forestry sector is shared by many of the communities that once had the benefit of well paid forestry workers and related industries. The loss of jobs will not be corrected by your strategies. The loss of jobs is the result of several factors.

The decline of newspapers in North America is a major factor. As well, the magazine sales are significantly reduced. Lumber mills still function on a very reduced scale in NW Ontario. The reduction is not because of red tape but because demand is reduced in Ontario because the North American needs are being met to a large degree by the industry in United States. They have very productive private and public forests with the benefit of warmer climates.

Job loss in the forest industry is also impacted by the need for the industry to sell the products at very low prices to be competitive. Most pulp mills and pulp and paper mills in the area are shut down because of the reduced demand for their product and their inability to lower their production costs to satisfy the lower purchase prices. Mills that still operate have had to mechanise their production facilities in the mill, by shipping raw pulp to the USA instead of producing paper products and packaging them in Ontario, and in so doing have reduced the number of employees to very low numbers. Mechanisation and computers have also been large contributors to this reduction.
In the woodlands, workers used to work 8 hours a day and 5 days a week. To lower production costs, employees work 24/7 using very productive equipment.
Changing the forest strategy is not going to bring back the jobs, and if it did, the area harvested would have to reflect the new forest mechanisation production levels.

I also noted that this strategy wants to help with the fact that the woodlands companies cannot find enough employees to drive the logging trucks. The Ontario Government wants to put more people out of work by funding the development of Highly Automated Trucks! Are you kidding??? The strategy is to find more people to work, not take away more jobs.

Regarding your strategy to spend Ontario tax dollars for "strategic investments" on logging roads, are you not aware that you already fund the logging roads! The forest industry should not be receiving government funding for roads. As an industry forester once involved in road construction and budgeting, companies had to fund all of the roads on the forestry licence area. It was a mistake when the government started funding road construction and maintenance at the time of many mill closures. The Auditor General should be reviewing this program. This funding program, which is basically a hand out to the forest industry, has resulted the acceleration of road construction, and minimal road deactivation once not needed. Road building contractors have become dependent on this funding for construction and maintenance. Fully accessed Licence areas with trucks and graders keeping this network of roads maintained, results in negative impacts on the wildlife that need some privacy. This over abundance of roads on a woodland licence is reducing the area growing trees and contribute to the available harvest area. The Ontario Government should be spending money to reduce the land occupied by unneeded forestry roads. Rehabilitating roads would benefit remote tourism experiences.

I noted a statistic that the pulp and paper industry should be commended for reducing emissions from the 1990 level by 66% and the forest industry by 48%. While the mills should be commended for their efforts and emission reduction, the main factor is that most mills are shut down. Dead mills do not emit much. Kenora, Fort Frances, Thunder Bay, etc, etc.

It is good when forest industry mills can make more products from the trees including using waste wood for heat and electrical production (Fort Frances), but I do not want to see trees being harvested with the intent to burn to produce electricity.

If I have your figures correct, the current Ontario public land is calculated to have a possible harvest level of 30 million cubic metres and is currently only producing 15m. And your calculations determine the level could rise to 38m with the factors including intensive forest management. I expect your increased productivity is to a large degree based on reducing the age of eligible harvest. The company I began working for, used a 100 year rotation age. Some mills are now harvesting with 50 year rotations to make up for the over harvesting that has taken place over the recent years. I strongly suggest that SFLs should be required to maintain at least 20% of the available harvest area in stands with an age over 100 years.

If mills are shutting down due to the economics and inability to find truck drivers, how are Ontario tax dollars going to be used to entice the forest industry to create new, good jobs?

These Crown Forests are the property of the people of Ontario and should be managed for not just the forest industry, but the well being of the forest and all the creatures and organisms that call it home.