OTTAWA – Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is calling on the federal government to recharge Quebec’s forestry sector with an eye to its energy potential.

The Bloc is laying out a slate of proposals aimed at supporting the logging business and developing biofuels derived from wood, seizing on the province’s vast forest tracts.

Blanchet says a re-energized logging sector would create more than 16,000 jobs in the province over the next decade and also work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

He says logging and wood products contribute to a low-carbon economy and that managed forests can act as “carbon sinks” by sequestering more carbon than the industry emits.

The proposals include a government procurement policy that encourages low emissions and a beefed-up research-and-development budget for the forestry sector focusing on bioproducts.

Blanchet says the road to developing wood-based biofuels is a long one, but that cleaner energy production and consumption are musts.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 8, 2021.