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U.S. softwood lumber duties and president-elect Donald Trump's threatened tariffs against Canadian exports could be "devastating" to the province's forestry sector, B.C. Forests Minister Ravi Parmar said on Wednesday.
He said the federal government needed to step up and help the industry as part of a co-ordinated strategy.
"We've got some work to do to bring a Team B.C. and Team Canada approach to fighting these duties in particular and convincing the federal government to step up and help us get this sector back on its feet," Parmar said.
Parmar was speaking in Prince George on Wednesday where the B.C. government announced $5.1 million in capital support for the forest sector through the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund.
The B.C. forestry sector has struggled in recent years as environmental factors and government policies have reduced sawmills' access to fibre, leading to numerous mill closures and the loss of thousands of jobs.
The province also launched a review of BC Timber Sales on Wednesday, recognizing the pressure the sector is under.
The organization manages about 20 per cent of B.C.'s annual allowable cut and the review will recommend ways for it to create forestry-sector growth and reliable market access to fibre.
Parmar said he was "significantly concerned" about the possibility of further mill closures.
"We know that 2025 is going to be a tough year for the forest sector," he said.
"Much of that has to do with softwood lumber duties going up and whatever this Trump tariff looks like, but this is an opportunity for the sector to come together and for us to be bold."
The U.S. recently increased its softwood lumber duties on Canadian imports, while Trump has broadly threatened to put 25 per cent tariffs on goods imported from Canada and Mexico, unless the two countries address the flow of illegal drugs and migrants across their borders.
B.C. Jobs Minister Diana Gibson, speaking alongside Parmar, said the province's strategy with the tariff threats is to try to fight them as well as diversify the economy and elevate economic growth in the province to reduce any impact.
"(We) really need to look at how we can we make sure we're maximizing our jobs here in B.C. and making sure we're resilient and less reliant on that north-south trade," she said.
The funding boost through the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund aims to help forestry companies grow their operations while maximizing wood supplies through value-added products such as engineered wood.
The funding aims to support seven capital projects as well as five planning projects.
The Opposition B.C. Conservatives' forests critic, Ward Stamer, said in a statement that the industry was facing "critical issues" and it was not the time for "more reviews and delays."
He called for expedited approval processes and better access to fire-damaged timber and residual fibre.
Canadian premiers and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met Wednesday to discuss Trump's tariff threats.
Trudeau, who chaired the meeting, said it was "highly productive."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 15, 2025.
Comments
"The B.C. forestry sector has struggled in recent years as environmental factors and government policies have reduced sawmills' access to fibre, leading to numerous mill closures and the loss of thousands of jobs."
"Environmental factors" and "government policies"? Are those really the primary causes?
Here we have a province larger in area than France and Germany combined, and it's apparently running out of harvestable timber. So much so that the dwindling amount of old growth forest can't even be saved for its basic, and vital, ecological value, and the extraction industry is moving their physical capital to greener pastures in the USA.
I suppose one can blame government policies, but those policies largely exist at the behest of the extractive industries that "inspire" those governments to implement such policies in search of short-term profit-taking.
It's not clear to me why CNO picked this piece off the wire.
Timber is an old symbol of BC's history. It is present in small towns all over the province. It is a source of nostalgia.
However, the forest industry is, in reality, a small contributor to the provincial econony. In fact, all natural resources combined, including fisheries and agriculture, don't add up to more than BC's tech sector.
Anything that leads to a shortage of lumber will affect the housing industry and construction in general. Trumpian tariffs may well stop the flow of lumber exported to the US, but BC could end up with a surplus of dimensional lumber abd logs.
It is possible the industry may lower local prices just to keep it moving.
A pause in lumber exports can be seen as an opportunity to pause extraction and give clear cutting, old growth removal, raw log exports and excessive industry influence on government some serious second thought. It's high time these issues are fully addressed.
There are ways to utilize the principle of regenerative forestry without clear cutting or killing the industry altogether. It is possible to rehabilitate devastated forest landscapes, diversify to mixed species planting in accordance to their natural ecology and maintain a permanent forest canopy cover while also selectively thinning growing forests and keeping forestry workers employed in perpetuity, albeit in lower numbers than in the current exploitative model. Boom and bust and mismanagement needs to be discarded.