CBC Maritime Noon with Bob Murphy March 9, 2026 (Audio)
“… And off the top, we speak with Raymond Plourde from the EAC about potential impacts of the NS budget on forestry.”
An In the News item cited on NSFM under In the News – NS Democracy Issues, and In the News – Climate & Biodiversity.
Rough Transcript
0.4 min
CBC: …But first, Nova Scotia’s proposed budget and concerns about the potential impact on woodlot owners. The budget is contained in Bill 198, it’s called the Financial Measures 2026 Act which is an omnibus bill introduced by the PC government last month.
People in the forestry sector are now coming forward with questions about how proposed changes could negatively affect conservation efforts.
We contacted the office of Nova Scotia’s Minister of Natural resources Kim Masland. Our request for an interview was declined.
To hear what industry watchers are saying, we’ve reached Raymond Plourde, he’s the Senior Wilderness Coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre. Raymond thanks for taking our call…
So what’s your primary concern at this point when it comes to the potential impact on forestry practices in Nova Scotia?
RP: Well I think there’s some potential impacts here for both conservation and for small private woodlot owners in in a few different areas.
And because the government is slamming these things through in omnibus legislation with a whole bunch of things that are loosely or not connected at all, in a very very short legislative session…it makes it difficult for the public public interest groups such as ourselves, woodlot owner organizations and individuals to actually understand what’s happening in such a rapid fire legislative environment.
So the approach is the first thing we have a concern with.
In the past, changes in legislation would occur based on the area of legislation they were affecting; so if it was amendments to the Forests Act for example, or the Easements Act, then it would be contained within its own bill and explained and there would be debate on the floor.
But when they’re being jammed through, under, in this case, the Financial Measures Act, essentially the Budget Bill with all kinds of other things, [and ]in a rapid period, it becomes much much harder to track, follow, even to understand what they’re doing.
CBC: I understand one of your areas of concern centres around conservation easements and what power they could end up having in the end should this budget pass as advertised; what’s your concern?
RP: So the omnibus bill for the Budget Bill 198 affects Conservation Easements and Community Easements Acts, so two different acts of law, one is for conservation easements – that’s… private land trusts, like Nova Scotia Nature Trust, the Nature Conservancy of Canada, would use this tool to protect land in this province and it looks like this kind of undermines that.
And similarly, the Community Easements Act that is used by groups like the Nova Scotia Working Woodlands Trust use to put community easements on one or more woodlots that people have, or large tracts of forested land where they may do some harvesting in one area, some conservation in another area, maybe some light trust forestry or some clear cutting or whatever sort combination of things.
Think of it as the Lahey Report’s Triad system on one or more or a group of people’s lands.
And this looks like it’s going to undermine that by allowing a much easier way for a future landowner that might have an easement on one part of or all of the property that might preclude certain activities like development or maybe clear cutting, and that future land owners – so that could be a descendant of the current owner who is voluntarily wanting to put those easements on so that that it carries forward into the future and creates a certain permanency – so if their desire under the Conservation Easement is to protect, say their entire woodlot. or rural space…the new pathway that this legislation seems to be creating is for …a descendant or or somebody that the land gets sold to in the future, [to] simply go to the Supreme Court and apply to have the easement removed. And all they need to do is prove that there is a hardship.
Well…they go to the judge and say “well I’d like to build a hotel here but there’s this easement that my great grandfather put on the land and I’d like to have it removed because not building a hotel is a hardship to me”.
CBC: So in that sense then, it’s not as locked down in your mind, you go to the courts, you might get the courts approval to move ahead with lifting the conservation easement, that judge may or may not side with you, but it’s your concern that at least it opens the door to that?
RP: Oh yes, absolutely. In fact what it does is it undermines the permanency of the easements themselves. So it would act as a real disincentive for people to participate in that
And I think it really undermines and hobbles our land conservation groups, both on the community easement side where you might have a working woodlot with some forestry and some conservation mixed in, and that’s going to hobble them as well as groups like the Land Trust who do conservation easements, because the whole idea is permanent protection.
And this undermines and hobbles those groups from being able to actually offer permanent protection because the government has just made it easier to make it not permanent.
And that also will affect the government in so far as their Protected Areas targets in Nova Scotia they have promised, committed in law, to reach 20% protection by 2030 – that includes these properties that have Conservation Easements on them.
But if they’re not permanent, then that might actually remove them from being counted. So it may undermine also the government’s Protected Areas goals.
CBC: I also wanted to ask you about carbon sequestration as well or carbon capture because that’s also a concern, I believe you have and there’s an article on the CBC website that talks about the Forest Act being updated to make clear that if forest land is being used for commercial carbon sequestration transitions and not engaged in forestry activity it cannot qualify for preferential tax rate. And the minister John Lohr says that basically, quote, “if the land is essentially being taken out of forestry, it obviously is of the opinion of the government that it shouldn’t attract that very low rate.”
RP: Right. So here the government is basically going to penalize people who have forested woodlots if they are participating in carbon credit markets, because in this government’s view if you don’t cut your trees then you’re not participating in forestry management.
And that’s wrong. Carbon credits are a way for private woodland owners to earn income from their woodlots. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that they would just never touch any of their woodlots, a lot of them do do active management, while at the same time accessing carbon markets, international carbon markets, by growing the stock of carbon stored in their forest while still removing trees and sending them off to the mills.
I think this government just has kind of a very simplistic understanding that if you participate in carbon markets by growing larger, healthier trees over time and storing more carbon in the soils and in the trees, that you are being a bad person and you’re not participating in traditional forestry cutting industry.
But that’s not necessarily true and it does seem to just, along with the problems with these easements, they show a government that views any kind of conservation measures or not cutting trees as a bad thing and punishing them for doing it
CBC: So we’ll let you go here right now Raymond, but how are you planning to communicate these concerns to the minister and other people in government between now and when that vote takes place?
RP: So the bill is before the house now in first reading, I think today it may go to second reading and perhaps by as early as tomorrow they will be holding the Public Bills Committee where people in the public, groups, organizations and individuals can go in and speak their piece to the ad before it is finally passed at third reading in the house.
So I plan to go and speak, I think there’s a lot of private woodland owners and organizations like the the Land Trust organizations and the working woodlot organizations that are going to go and speak to this bill.
We will too, I’ll be drawing the government’s attention at the fact that under law, they are committed to implementing the Lahey Report on forestry practices and that in that report, among other things the Lehey Report says that DNR, the government, should develop a framework for maximizing the access of Nova Scotia landowners, including woodlot owners, to carbon credit trading opportunities in and around Nova Scotia or… beyond Nova Scotia.
So there are a whole lot of things in the Lahey report that actually speak about government helping woodlot owners access those markets and maximize their value.
And this government is going in the opposite direction. They are going to penalize through taxation, higher taxation rates, people who participate in those markets.
It seems to be that they’re ideologically driven to support resource extraction and to penalize, hobble and otherwise hurt anybody who’s participating in the private land sector on anything that looks like environmental conservation.
CBC: OK will have to leave it there for today Raymond, but thanks very much for taking our call… Raymond Plourde is the Senior Wilderness Coordinator with the Ecology Action Centre in Nova Scotia.
We also reached out to Natural Resources Minister Kim Masland but our interview request was declined. 12:13 min