A combination of closures and investment are needed to prop Canada’s struggling forest sector back to its feet, a r…
A combination of closures and investment are needed to prop Canada’s struggling forest sector back to its feet, a recent report concluded.
Part of a three-year research program entitled ‘The Canada Project,’ released by the Conference Board of Canada, concluded that uncompetitive mills should close their doors, while money should be redirected to research and development activities, new products and modern facilities.
“Canada’s forest products sector needs renewal,” Canadian Press reported Gilles Rheaume, the conference board’s vice president of public policy as saying.
“This is especially the case in pulp and paper, where older, smaller mills are losing ground to newer, larger global rivals. Scale matters in this industry, and to compete, Canadian companies must be able to build larger mills. Governments should change timber allocation processes and eliminate interprovincial trade barriers to make ‘super-mills’ possible.”
The board further recommended changing existing taxation policies, revamping the timber tenure system, scrapping interprovincial barriers to the log trade, increasing funding to research and development activities and providing incentives to facilities that expand their biomass energy production.
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