Backgrounder

Through Economic Action Plan 2010, the Government of Canada created the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation program (IFIT) to support the implementation of innovative and promising technologies at the pilot and first-commercial scales. This investment is part of our phased approach to helping the Canadian forest industry increase its economic competitiveness.

Projects funded under the program will benefit the forest sector by bringing advanced technologies out of laboratories and into industrial facilities where they can begin to generate benefits for our forest products industry and the communities that depend on it.

Details of today’s IFIT announcement:

• Tekle Technical Services (TTS), Drayton Valley, Alberta – $4.5 million
  This investment will support the creation of Canada’s first facility that manufactures engineered biocomposites fibre mats - made with world-first, Canadian-developed processes. Lightweight, renewable biocomposite fibre mats can be used to make dozens of products including compression-moulded panels for the automotive industry.
• Millar Western Forest Products Ltd., Whitecourt, Alberta – $6.75 million
  For the first time in Canada’s forest sector on a commercial scale, Millar Western Forest Products will generate green energy from pulp mill effluent by using innovative anaerobic hybrid digester technology. This waste-to-energy technology has strong potential for replication at other mills across Canada.
• Tolko Industries Meadow Lake, Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan – $4.9 million
  The innovative technologies funded through this project will make Tolko Industries the first facility in North America to produce specialty- and commodity-oriented strand board products on one production line, while enhancing quality and performance of the final product.
• Structurlam, Okanagan Falls, British Columbia – $2 million
  Structurlam will install the necessary technology and equipment to manufacture the innovative EcoStructure Wall System, a new cross-laminated timber product that provides a renewable alternative to more traditional, energy-intensive building materials such as concrete and steel.
• BC Passive House, Pemberton, British Columbia – $1.4 million
  BC Passive House will be Canada’s first manufacturing plant for prefabricating a panelized system that meets the rigorous Passive House Standard, currently the world’s most rigorous energy standard. These prefabricated panels combine Canadian wood and wood byproducts, advanced design, superior insulation and air tightness to create an ultra low-energy-use building.

For more information on the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation Program, visit www.forest-transformation.nrcan.gc.ca.