It’s time to develop a sensible government plan.
BC’s new forests minister, Ravi Parmar, has been busy gathering opinions on the state and possible fate of the province’s forest industry.
Now it’s time for the MLA for Langford-Highlands on Vancouver Island to sit down with real experts, pick their brains, catch up on BC forestry economics, and come up with a sensible, realistic, and achievable forestry plan.
While promising to be “bold” in finding solutions for the battered forest industry, he is already saying that basic policies will remain in place.
In January, he will receive his official “mandate letter” from Premier David Eby, which will give Parmar his marching orders in terms of principles and priorities.
(The 2022 mandate letter for his predecessor as forests minister, Bruce Ralston, included moving the forest sector to “high-value production” with fewer raw log exports, advancing old-growth protection plans, working toward “full partnership with First Nations in managing B.C. forest resources,” and improving regulatory processes.)
When Parmar gets his letter, it would be a good time for him to sit down with industry experts and First Nations to work on a solid plan.
It could start with ways to ensure fibre is available. Lack of fibre has long been a major challenge for the industry.
As chief economist Kurt Niquidet of the Council of Forest Industries notes, timber harvesting on Crown land has declined by roughly 30% since 2021.
“We need to find ways to stabilize fibre supply and build a more predictable and sustainable path forward for the sector.”
Canfor CEO Don Kayne highlights a shortage of timber and fibre, compounded by government policies and regulations:
“Unfortunately, while our province has a sufficient supply of timber available for harvest, the actual harvest level has declined dramatically to a level not seen since the 1960s.”
There are more challenges on top of that, including a shift of investment to the U.S. (where there is plenty of available wood and lower costs) and the damage caused by hefty American duties on Canadian softwood lumber. All have contributed to forestry woes in BC, but timber supply would be a key place to start.
Parmar has undoubtedly already been hearing from green groups and anti-logging protesters who had favored access to the ear of the preceding government.
If we were to write Parmar’s mandate letter, it would first require him to take an unbiased look at his government’s Review to Action scheme and its “commitments” for old-growth forests.
The scheme was said to have been based on input from what the government called “independent” review panels. But our Resource Works CEO, Stewart Muir, found out in 2022 that the purportedly independent “Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel” was heavily loaded with bias.
“The supposedly impartial expert panel was, in fact, constituted to exclude nearly all viewpoints except those closely aligned to a single organization, the Sierra Club, which has a longstanding axe to grind with the forest industry.
“The ‘Old Growth Technical Advisory Panel’ was a joint project of environment minister George Heyman and forest minister Katrine Conroy. Correspondence reveals that it was mostly designed and managed by Heyman, who, before becoming an MLA, was executive director of Sierra Club BC.
“Remarkably, four of the five appointees had strong, unmistakable connections to the Sierra Club. A government official noted that the panel ‘does not include the full range of views that would be needed for decision-making.’”
But we now have Parmar saying the government approach to preserving old-growth trees is here to stay.
“It’s very important for me to be clear that the old-growth strategic review and recommendations are now my job ... to honor those commitments and fulfill those recommendations.”
The government’s actions to date have included discussions, through “forest landscape planning tables,” with Indigenous nations, forest companies, and community leaders. Premier David Eby has said these efforts will provide eventual certainty over what trees can be logged and where.
Parmar stated: “The forest landscape plans and tables, I think, are the best way to address those challenges and make sure we have certainty. ... I’m of the mind that, hopefully, we are weeks or months away from co-operative deals.”
Parmar said he’ll have more to say “over the next few weeks” on new initiatives to get more wood fibre to mills and ensure the fibre is used in the most effective way.
As Resource Works managing director Margareta Dovgal has pointed out, some 10,000 jobs were lost in BC in 2023, largely due to a shrinking supply of timber.
“The industry says nothing has had an impact on supply more than deferments and suspensions of harvesting introduced in recent years by the provincial government.
“The forestry sector says BC has sufficient timber available for harvest, but the actual harvest level has declined dramatically. In 2023, it was 42% lower than the allowable cut—a level not seen since the 1960s. ...
“So this is all about policy choices by the government.”
The Council of Forest Industries of BC was among the business groups that told Parmar, and other new ministers and MLAs, that “forestry has shed over 10,000 direct jobs in just four years and hundreds of millions of dollars of lost investment.”
The council also published an economic study showing how, in 2022, “the forestry industry engaged over 9,970 suppliers and vendors across BC, resulting in $6.6 billion in expenditures on goods and services.”
It noted that the forest industry is connected to 335 BC municipalities and First Nations communities.
It stressed: “The BC forest industry faces significant challenges that threaten its stability and growth. These include greater regulatory complexity, higher costs, and uncertainty over access to the land base. The industry also needs to grapple with rapidly changing market conditions, including increased U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber.
“To ensure a sustainable future for the forest sector in BC, industry stakeholders, government, First Nations, and local communities need to collaborate and find ways to address current challenges. This will ensure the long-term viability of this foundational industry and the ongoing benefits it brings to communities throughout the province.”
Meanwhile, the shadow forests minister of the BC Conservative Party, Ward Stamer, new MLA for Kamloops-North Thompson but a long-time forestry worker, has weighed in with his own views, beginning with this: “We need certainty in our markets and certainty in our fibre supply before we no longer have a forest industry in this province.”
Stamer added two points: “One is our antiquated stumpage fees. It is a legacy from decades ago, and one incapable of responding to changing market conditions. We need to revamp our stumpage system to better reflect market conditions and our economic costs.
“Instead, a value-added tax system will be instantly responsive to current market conditions and will encourage industry to get more value and jobs out of each log. Input credits will be created for higher-value products and better utilization of fibre, meaning the more a producer can do with the fibre, the more credits that will be created.”
“Then, there is the issue of the long-expired softwood lumber agreement with the United States. The previous one expired a decade ago, and the devastation that has caused to BC’s forestry industry cannot be allowed to continue. We need to get a new softwood lumber agreement deal hammered out with the Americans—it can’t wait another ten years.”
Says Kurt Niquidet of the Council of Forest Industries: “Industry, government, First Nations, local communities, and workers need to come together to address current uncertainty over fibre supply and attract the investment required to build on BC’s strategic advantage in the conservation and sustainable management of this renewable resource.”
Yes indeed.