Since 2018, notes forestry watcher David Elstone, the British Columbia government has introduced more than 43 measures, policies, plans, systems, laws, reviews and reports about and affecting the BC forest sector.
Meanwhile, there have been a series of closures and curtailments (permanent, temporary or indefinite) of sawmills and pulp mills, and thus workforce reductions.
“And the fibre-supply crisis has continued to worsen, and . . . the industry is in far worse condition than ever before.”
Elstone’s basic message, from his View from the Stump blog: “Government has been busy designing change rather than figuring out solutions and moving forward. . . .
“Sadly, none of these changes or initiatives, despite the best of intentions, have led to
broadscale improvements for the industry.
“Some issues did need addressing and some different segments of the forest sector may have improved. Unfortunately, the fibre-supply crisis has continued to worsen, and the industry (small to big players) is in far worse condition than ever before.”
Federal changes added
Kim Haakstad, CEO of the BC Council of Forest Industries (COFI) echoes the analysis:
“There’s been a significant amount of change that hasn’t settled itself into the system, and there’s been no look at what regulatory efficiency can be achieved to make processes clearer, more transparent, and more accountable.”
And she points out that on top of all this the federal government has also introduced changes affecting the forest sector.
Both Elstone and Haakstad note how the BC government changes include efforts to get First Nations playing a bigger role in the industry.
Haakstad says the industry supports the objective: “There’s some real power and benefit we’ve seen in engagement with First Nations communities, and creation of better, lasting partnerships with nations at the same time.”
First Nations challenged
But, Haakstad continues, First Nations are finding the moves challenging, as many don’t have the capacity to deal with the red tape.
“They are reviewing permits and permit referrals from the province at a volume that nations have never seen before. And that’s not just in forestry; that’s across the industries that operate on the land base. . . .
“I was talking to one nation: they had 2,500 permits in the referral log and only two people to handle them. They weren’t all forestry permits, but they were all in the same stack, and there’s not a forestry-specific person to look at them.”
Meanwhile, COFI points to the impact of plant closures and curtailments on people in BC — “the loggers and truck drivers, the unionized mill workers, the bioenergy and mass-timber producers, and the thousands of small businesses that rely on the sector.
“When mills close, it is not only the mill workers and their families that suffer — it is the local nurses, the gas-station owners, the café workers, and the many small businesses and service providers who keep rural and small communities alive.”
BC mayors concerned
- North Cowichan Mayor Rob Douglas and Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog in a letter to BC Forests Minister Ravi Parmar: “We anticipate a continued decline in volume harvested, compounded with softwood lumber duties and U.S. tariffs, will potentially devastate the forest industry and result in the closure of more mills, meaning communities like ours will lose family-supporting jobs and major taxpayers, exacerbating the already high cost of living that our residents are facing.”
- Williams Lake Mayor Surinderpal Rathor: “We are concerned about the potential loss of tax revenue that will come from all the layoffs. People need to be able to feed their families before they can pay taxes. With less tax revenue, the town might not be able to afford to provide basic services for our residents, like trash collection and road clearing.”
COFI, among others, notes the impact of hefty import duties and tariffs on lumber exports to the US market, and a slowdown in house-building in the US.
In 2025, the US more than tripled its tariffs and duties on BC’s softwood lumber to more than 45 per cent
“While softwood lumber duties and trade uncertainty add significant pressure, not everything can be blamed on the dispute (with the U.S.)
“It is important to focus on the areas within our control, and those remain the core issues facing BC forestry: access to predictable, economic wood supply and the ability to operate in a competitive and efficient regulatory environment.
Solutions long overdue
COFI’s Haakstad says: “We need to look at what’s impeding our competitiveness and figure out how we can make British Columbia more competitive in a global marketplace. We need to have decision-making that has clear timelines and an understanding of where it’s going. . . .
“There are supposed to be forestry plans, talking about and focusing on how we do forestry on the land-base in British Columbia, and the forest industry is not at the table. Not great, right?”
COFI adds: “The solutions are well known and long overdue. The provincial government must urgently:
- Remove barriers to getting wood moving — by improving the efficiency and timeliness of cutting permits and road-building approvals, and fast-tracking improvements to BC Timber Sales to get wood to the market.
- Address operating costs — both at the harvest level and in manufacturing facilities, where BC mills face mounting administrative and regulatory burdens.
- Support First Nations with the capacity and tools to expedite referrals, co-develop land use plans with the BC government and industry, and increase revenue sharing—so that partnerships can move at the speed of opportunity.”
Forestry’s triple whammy
Another commentator, forest scientist Alice Palmer, says the BC forest industry faces a “triple whammy” — two of the whammies being (a) depressed markets in the US and China, and (b) US tariffs and import duties.
The third whammy? Fibre supply, the amount of wood the industry is allowed to cut and process.
That was first limited by damage to forests from an outbreak of the Mountain Pine Beetle starting in the 1990s and later by forest fires. And now it is affected by the government.
“The province has put in a whole bunch of regulations within the last five years or so. They’re not all bad regulations, but a lot of regulations came in quickly, and it’s been hard for . . . companies to adapt to all these different regulations all coming in at the same time.”
David Elstone again: “I do believe it is possible to achieve the values the government wants while having a diverse and prosperous industry, but endless and directionless government policy change is just going to continue decreasing competitiveness.”
All in all, it’s time for a serious New Year roundtable of government ministers, industry leaders, and First Nations, to sort out the confusion, re-set the priorities, cut the red tape, and get the sector moving again.
