Pipelines, energy and natural resources

[daftandbarmy]

Meanwhile, in the forest sector ...

B.C. mill closures hinder reforestation efforts, with long-term consequences​

B.C.’s mills have been a key driver in forest health and reforestation efforts across the province, and as they close, external funding will be required to ensure decades of forestry work don’t go to waste and become wildfire fuel, according to experts.

Canfor announced the pending closure of its pulp mill in Prince George in July, adding to a growing list of more than 20 lumber mills closed permanently or indefinitely in the province since 2023. These moves have erased thousands of mill jobs from B.C.’s economy, while creating consequential gaps in the province’s forestry sector.

As John Betts, executive director of the Western Forestry Contractors Association, explained, B.C.’s forests are full of fuels in need of attention, and a lack of processing facilities creates missed opportunities and squandered assets without new processing solutions. This Canfor closure, he said, “is just the tip of a larger sort of problem.”

B.C. mill closures hinder reforestation efforts, with long-term consequences

B.C.’s mills have been a key driver in forest health and reforestation efforts across the province, and as they close, external funding will be required to ensure decades of forestry work don’t go to waste and become wildfire fuel, according to experts.

www.ctvnews.ca

 

[YZT580]

Meanwhile, in the forest sector ...

B.C. mill closures hinder reforestation efforts, with long-term consequences​

And how many closures are a result of soft wood tariffs and how many can be attributed to things like labour costs, taxes and bureaucracy?

 

[Brad Sallows]

The usual lines on nightly news go something like this:

Government (minister or premier): this is the fault of Trump's tariffs

Industry: this is the fault of BC government forest industry policy

I suspect both are true, owing to a generally observable chain of events: governments squeeze private interests (ie. impose costs) in order to favour particular policy outcomes or simply for money; costs will be borne or passed along until they can't, at which point the interests become fiscally and economically fragile; the next adverse event - which might only be transitory, but doesn't matter if it's longer than can be tolerated - pushes interests over the brink.

The government's position isn't helped by the fact that "Trump" is too often their preferred scapegoat for deflecting problems away from their own mistakes and incompetence.

I suppose BC government policy put the forest industry in BC in a vulnerable economic position, and the current wave of US protectionism was one stressor too many. Notably, the BC government picks and chooses economic opportunities (mines and southern pipeline yes; forest industry practice changes and northern pipeline no) and shows no sign of giving up its ideological preferences in order to support industry, which is not actually a behaviour that can be claimed as being pro-development (which they're doing a lot of on TV these days). It is just the usual heavy-handed state/central planning disease.

 

[daftandbarmy]

And how many closures are a result of soft wood tariffs and how many can be attributed to things like labour costs, taxes and bureaucracy?

I believe the latter took them to the edge, and then the former pushed them over...

Another 'lost decade' looms, kinda like when the Glen Clark NDP government were in power in the 90s...

Is British Columbia Headed Towards Another Lost Decade?

https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/2026-02/is-british-columbia-headed-towards-another-lost-decade.pdf