Chrystia Freeland
The forestry sector received a $3-billion boost in Canada’s fiscal update – but with the focus mainly on ecological management, a national forestry association says there are still opportunities for further development in the industry, especially when it comes to the bioeconomy. …Freeland said the government expects to spend $70 billion to $100 billion over the next three years to boost the country’s recovery from COVID-19. …Included in that stimulus spending is money for “nature-based climate solutions.” Starting in 2021-22, the government will allocate $3.16 billion over 10 years for Natural Resources Canada to… plant two billion trees. Another $30.6 million in 2020-21 will… offset costs associated with COVID-19 safety measures for small and medium-sized businesses in the forest sector, including tree planting operations. And starting in 2021-22, the government plans to provide up to $631 million over 10 years to facilitate the restoration of ecosystems, wildlife protection and resource management of Canada’s grasslands, wetlands and peatlands.
Montreal, Quebec – Following the 
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ONTARIO — After more than 100 years spent looking out over the town of Fort Frances, the old mill is coming down. However, there’s hope that new life will spring up in its place. Last month, demolition began on the mill, now owned by a numbered company under Riversedge Development. …Following the mill’s sale from Resolute Forest Products to Riversedge in 2019. …According to Norton, decommissioning work is being done on several existing mill properties, including the paper mill building itself. …LePage noted that even as permits have been issued for certain parts of the mill, the company is still working on exhausting any lead it has on parties who could be interested in remaining mill buildings. …While the possibility remains that a number of existing buildings could be purchased for repurposing, LePage and Norton expect the demolition process to take between 18 and 22 months.
At 11-storeys, T3 Bayside, on the rise in downtown Toronto, will be the tallest mass timber office building in North America. It eclipses the maximum allowable height of six storeys under the 2012 Ontario Building Code (OBC) because the design team, led by 3XN Architects, won the City of Toronto over through “a series of alternate (design) solutions,” Elizabeth Nichols, project manager 3XN, told a webinar audience recently at the Wood Solutions Conference. Increasing the number of sprinklers, shifting from a single to a dual water supply system, pressurizing the exit stairs, including a pressurized firefighters’ elevator and an all-concrete ground floor were among the factors in its alternate solutions package presented to the city. …Its building will have exposed timber ceilings throughout, a no-no in the OBC and National Building Code (NBC), the latter, which only permits 25 per cent of an office building’s ceilings to be in exposed timber.
Ontario, usually a national leader in adopting smart policy, is lagging behind its provincial peers in one important area: mass timber buildings. Creating more opportunities for wood in construction, specifically through mass timber, will help address our climate and housing crises as well as assist us in rebounding from pandemic-fuelled unemployment if paired with green-building skills training. Mass timber buildings, those with structural elements primarily made of solid, built-up, panelized or engineered wood products, are currently limited to six storeys in Ontario. Provinces like Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec have all adopted Canada’s forthcoming national building codes, allowing for construction of up to 12 storeys. Harmonizing Ontario’s code with the national standard should be an urgent priority and there are good reasons for it. … Trees absorb climate change-causing carbon emissions, which remain trapped in the wood long after its use in construction projects. 
CORNER BROOK, N.L. — 
A concerted effort to nip forest fires in the bud before they went out of control appears to have paid off, the province says. “The province’s approach to fire management this year placed an even stronger focus on early detection, combating detected fires with full force in order to keep them small,” a Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry news release said on Oct. 30. This season, the amount of area burned by forest fires across the province was 15,460 hectares — less than 10 per cent of the 10-year average. In Ontario, forest fire season officially lasts until Oct. 31. Another factor that could have limited the amount of area burned was a decision to implement a burn ban between April 3 and May 16, a period that often sees a lot of human-caused grass and brush fires.
