Forestry or no forestry?

Mills keep closing, workers lose their jobs, and communities wither. That has been the story of B.C. forestry since the 1970s. Today, with all its challenges and setbacks, the industry is out of breath, and the doctor has prescribed a puffer, not a cure. 

There are companies holding on, and a few that stand out for taking concrete action to pursue a modern, innovative B.C. forest industry. 

In Mainland B.C.

There are a small number of mass timber producers in almost every region of mainland British Columbia. Some of the large companies are involved. However, they have invested more in Washington State, the Southeastern US and Europe. The primary reason is access to economical timber.

The Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force just recently issued its report. The task force co-chair, British Columbia’s own Ken Kalesnikoff, appeared on the August 2026 episode of the Conversations That Matter podcast. 

During the podcast, Mr. Kalesnikoff recounted the story of his family’s company and their experiences over the years, particularly their move into mass timber production.

Kalesnikoff emerged in the Kootenays from the work of a family of Russian immigrants during the Great Depression. Today, the company has roughly 375 employees and has completed over 400 mass timber projects in Canada and the US. The company confidently claims on its website to be North America’s most advanced, vertically integrated, multi-species mass timber manufacturer.  

We should all really take note of this story that Mr. Kalesnikoff shared on the podcast. 

Once it became known that Kalesnikoff’s company would build mass timber manufacturing capacity, they received a call from Springfield, Oregon, offering university support, funding for site infrastructure, expert training, and all manner of assistance if they relocated the project there—far beyond any support they would have received in B.C. They turned the offer down. 

In B.C., we don’t have a credible, value-added mass timber plan that would enable the dozen or so mass timber manufacturers today to grow into a provincial industry. 

Sure, there is a paper plan, but without solving the timber supply problem, it doesn’t qualify as a Mass Timber Action Plan. The value-added sector needs logs and traditional sawmills, but there is no assurance of how many or where they will be located, with the present permitting regime.

On the coast

Nelson Bennett, writing for Resource Works, tells the story of entrepreneurship in forestry underway right now on the South Coast.

“Iskum Investments, a consortium of 16 coastal First Nations, is looking to build a new, state-of-the-art sawmill capable of milling second-growth hemlock and fir, at a cost of about $100 to $150 million.” 

Iskum Investments demonstrated seriousness and resolve by recruiting Rick Doman to lead the project. Rick is a second-generation member of the founding family of Doman’s Lumber & Transport Ltd., a noted coastal forestry company. Rick Doman more recently founded successful modern wood products companies in Ontario.

The intent is to build a mill capable of efficiently processing second-growth hemlock and fir while meeting imperial and metric standards, with the goal of opening up global markets.  

The work of Iskum Investments and the mass timber manufacturers is modest in the context of the B.C. industry. So much more is possible if…

Fifty years of worker, community and corporate patience

In 1973, the NDP government bought the Central Ocean Falls pulp and sawmill operations on the central coast and the Columbia Cellulose pulp mill and TFL 1 on the north coast. 

In 1976, what is commonly referred to as the Pearse Commission began its work to sort out the timber allocation process. As R. Schwindt’s analysis lays out, B.C. handed out timber rights through a patchwork of methods—Crown grants, leases, licences, quotas—each with its own rules, and no real coordination between them. Investment was discouraged then, in the same way uncertainty over timber supply scares off investment now. 

Now, in 2026, we have the Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force. The task force’s top recommendation is: “Stable access to cost-competitive fibre”.  

Where does responsibility lie: With us all

For fifty years, across ten governments—five NDP and five with other nameplates dealt with how the province allocates and manages access to timber.

It is time to get real about all this. Is it fifty years of incompetence, is it complacency, or is it just fifty years of disinterest? Have we given up on forestry but can’t admit it? What is it?

Rural British Columbia is vast. Communities are spread out wide. This is especially the case in the North. 

There has been one industry that has plugged the gaps between the ports on the coast, the hospital and university in Prince George, and oil and natural gas fields in the Northeast. That one industry has been forestry, ever since the industrialization of the north began following the Second World War.

The major projects we are committed to now are large but few in number, geographically clustered, and may even widen the gaps. 

Tourism is great for what it provides in specific locations, but it leaves even wider gaps across the north.

So, if the plan really is more value-added forest products, especially mass timber, then let’s get it done. 

The work of Iskum Investments on the coast and of a handful of mass timber and value-added manufacturers, like Kalesnikoff, in the interior has barely moved the needle. Province-wide progress will require tackling the always-present timber supply and permitting problems.

For that to happen, the government and the opposition in the legislature must fix what is within their control: reasonable assurance there will be access to economic fibre. It is a decades-long bipartisan failure.

The public, at this time of existential threats, has a job to do. That is, provide the forest industry, which includes workers, First Nations, communities, and companies, with the respect and support they deserve. Land-use values over the past 30 years have leaned away from them and, too often, disrespectfully. The government requires a social licence to strike a pragmatic balance, now, as time is running out.

It feels appropriate to conclude on the opening and closing paragraphs of an article written by Derek Nighbor, President and CEO of the Forest Products Association of Canada and the Canadian Wood Council, published by the Hill Times in August, 2026.

Jim Rushton is a 46-year veteran of BC’s resource and transportation sectors, with experience in union representation, economic development, and terminal management. Reach him at [email protected].

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