The federal government highlighted in the 2023 Fall Economic Statement the opportunity for Canada to leverage the economic and environmental benefits of waste biomass conversion for heat and energy. Extracting more value from forest biomass will offer significant opportunity for forestry workers and communities and is environmentally sustainable and and also in reduces the vulnerability of our forests to devastating fires. We have an outstanding example of this with the Catalyst paper mill in Port Aberni which employs 350 workers and is the only paper mill on the west coast of Canada. Yet the government has dragged its feet so this week I wrote to the Ministers of Finance, Energy and Natural Resources and Innovation, Science and Industry to urge them to get on with it!
