Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, P.C., M.P., Minister of Natural Resources: Thank you. Yes, as you say, forests are an important carbon sink, alongside wetlands and peatlands. Certainly, we are focused on trying to enhance the carbon sinks through programs like the 2 Billion Trees program. But as you also rightly point out, forestry, and particularly anything related to things like the waste that we leave in the forests, create methane and, at times, CO₂, which contribute to climate change.

Canada does account for all of that. We use guidelines that are recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. There are some environmental organizations who think that some of those guidelines should be different and changed. We have engaged with them — Nature Canada is one of them; Natural Resources Defense Council is another. We are engaged in conversations with them, but, of course, Canada doesn’t want to invent its own guidelines. We want to work in lockstep with our international partners, and we are doing that on an ongoing basis.

Certainly, we are focused very much going forward on trying to find ways, for example, to better utilize the value that exists — for example, in waste which presently is often left in the forest, creating methane but also costing our economy dollars.

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