Source coverage: Tree Frog Forestry News (Kelly McCloskey, Editor)
Brad West has a problem that doesn’t show up in any mill closure announcement or fibre supply report, but may be more consequential than either.
“Residents of Metro Vancouver are entirely unaware that mill closures have any material impact on their lives,” the mayor of Port Coquitlam told delegates at the 2026 COFI Convention in Vancouver. “They do not connect the health care, education, and public services they rely on to the forestry workers who help fund them.”
Without that awareness, West said plainly, the political conditions for meaningful action will not develop.
It was the sharpest observation from a panel that kept arriving at the same uncomfortable conclusion: the forestry sector’s most urgent problem is not regulatory, or financial, or even about fibre supply — though it is all of those things. It is a problem of civic disconnection, and no amount of industry advertising will solve it on its own.
The session, moderated by Karen Brandt of Mosaic Forest Management, brought together West; Leonard Krog, mayor of Nanaimo; and Maria McFadden, mayor of Castlegar — three elected officials from different corners of BC’s political and economic geography, each with a distinct read on how the sector’s public standing became so precarious and what it will take to rebuild it.
Polarization as the root cause
McFadden offered the panel’s most diagnostic framing. Forestry, she argued, has not lost public support so much as it has become collateral damage from a broader collapse — the failure of institutional leadership to hold difficult conversations without defaulting to entrenched camps.
The result is a culture of deep skepticism toward institutions in which no communications plan, however well-funded, moves the needle. What does work, in her experience, is simpler and slower: getting in the same room as people, listening before asking to be heard, and being willing to stand in front of the discomfort rather than route around it.
She described moderating a post-screening discussion of a forestry documentary in Castlegar where an irate attendee arrived threatening to disrupt the event. Taking a moment to shake his hand, learn his name, and invite him to stay on respectful terms changed the dynamic entirely. A confrontation became a genuine exchange. There is a large middle contingent, she said, that simply needs accurate information — and that reaching them requires being present rather than broadcasting.
The Premier problem
Krog approached the political dimension from a different angle. The forestry sector, he said, cannot survive on the minister of forests alone. It needs the premier — publicly, repeatedly, and followed by action.
He drew a distinction between the adversarial political styles of earlier eras and what he described as the current federal tone, where volume has been turned down and substantive conversations can happen. That shift, he suggested, is possible at the provincial level too — but it requires leadership that is willing to make the case for forestry to audiences that do not already support it.
West echoed the point and extended it: champions for the sector need to carry the message to social justice conferences, poverty advocacy groups, and community organizations — making the case that forestry and mining are what fund the social programs those audiences care about most. BC succeeds or fails as a whole, he said. The consistency of that message across all audiences matters as much as the message itself.
Both urged delegates to treat civic participation as a professional responsibility. Krog told the room to vote in municipal elections and encourage workers to do the same — noting that low turnout has direct consequences for who gets elected and what positions councils take. West went further: he encouraged people in the room to consider running for office themselves.
The industrial land problem nobody talks about
West raised a separate issue that drew little attention in surrounding coverage but has serious long-term implications: the conversion of industrial land in the Lower Mainland to residential uses is quietly eroding the foundation of the region’s productive economy.
Businesses in Port Coquitlam, he said, are already looking to Alberta and Washington State because industrial land is simply unavailable. Once it is gone, it cannot be recovered. He called on the provincial government to become much more focused on protecting the industrial land base before more is lost — a warning that applies as directly to forestry-related manufacturing and processing facilities as to any other sector.
McFadden connected the forest sector to the lived experience of Kootenay residents in a way that resonates well beyond her region. People who move to Castlegar for the outdoor lifestyle, she noted, often do not understand that what they are enjoying is the product of professional forest management. The same gap applies to wildfire risk and watershed protection — and bridging it requires sustained education and honest decision-making rather than policy designed primarily to satisfy short-term public opinion.
Where all three landed
Asked what they see a decade out, none of the three offered optimism as a default. Their shared concern was precise: the sector will be smaller than it should be — not because the opportunity isn’t there, but because policy and public will haven’t kept pace with it.
That convergence of concern — measured, informed, and coming from elected officials across BC — is itself a signal worth reading carefully. These are not industry advocates. They are the people responsible for the communities that depend on what the sector produces, and they are saying, with some urgency, that the conditions for recovery are political before they are regulatory.
The conversation continues
The themes raised at COFI — economic disconnection, political will, civic engagement with resource industries — sit at the heart of a gathering Resource Works, the Alliance of Resource Communities, and the Energy Futures Institute are hosting in Vancouver next week.
On Wednesday, April 15, mayors, councillors, business leaders, and Indigenous partners will convene at the Vancouver Club for a luncheon organized around a pointed question: what is actually happening to BC’s economy, and what would materially improve it? Brad West will be among the panellists. David Williams of the Business Council of BC will deliver the economic keynote. Barry Penner of the Energy Futures Institute will address energy affordability. The event runs from 11:30 AM to 2:00 PM at the Vancouver Club Grand Ballroom, 915 West Hastings Street.
Seats are limited.
Register: BC’s Economic Trajectory — Eventbrite
Ian Biana writes for the Resource Works Accelerate team and can be reached at [email protected]. Reporting with AI tools from the 2026 COFI Convention, JW Marriott Parq Vancouver, April 9–10, 2026. Source coverage: Tree Frog Forestry News (Kelly McCloskey, Editor).
Resource Works News
