A federal task force announced earlier this month will attempt to save Canada’s stricken forest industry from further decline through product and market diversification.

While the support will no doubt be welcomed by the industry, in B.C. the more immediate need is access to timber.

Canada’s forestry sector has been pummeled by a one-two punch of low lumber prices, and American tariffs and duties on softwood lumber.

The situation is particularly dire in B.C, where an integrated industry of lumber, remanufacturing, pulp and pellet mills has been collapsing like a row of dominos.

In 2025 alone, B.C. lost three major operations: the Crofton pulp mill on Vancouver Island, the West Fraser sawmill in 100 Mile House and a Drax pellet mill in Williams Lake.

Since 2022, 15,000 forest sector jobs have been lost, according to the Council of Forest Industries (COFI), and since 2023 there have been 21 permanent or indefinite mill closures.

On the B.C. coast, 10 mills have permanently closed since 2018, resulting in 5,800 job losses, said Peter Lister, executive director for the Truck Loggers Association.

Pulp mill closures are particularly devastating to local economies, as they provide high-paying jobs and provide millions in industrial taxes.

The Municipality of North Cowichan lost 370 direct high-paying jobs as a result of the Crofton mill’s closure, and this year the district expects to lose $800,000 in industrial taxes, said North Cowichan Mayor Rob Douglas.

The industry is in crisis, a number of speakers said at the Truck Loggers Association convention, which ran Jan. 14-16.

"I've been doing this for 39 years,” said Tracey Russell, vice-president of equipment for Inland Truck & Equipment. “This is the most challenging time we have ever faced in British Columbia.”

Premier David Eby has blamed American tariffs and duties, and low lumber prices for the closures.

And while they are contributing factors, the more fundamental cause of the collapse of B.C.’s integrated forest sector is a lack of timber.

"A lot of our problems are structural, made-in-B.C. problems,” Lister said. "Lack of fibre was the reason Crofton closed down."

On paper, B.C. has an annual allowable cut (ACC) of 60 million cubic metres. The actual cut has been about half that for the last two years.

Policies introduced by the NDP government—including a moratorium on logging old growth and new eco-system based land management—have contributed to driving up the cost of harvesting and lengthening the time it takes to get cutting permits.

B.C.’s forest industry is highly integrated, with pulp mills dependent on sawmill waste.

But so many sawmills have closed that the few pulp mills remaining in B.C. have had to resort more and more to pulp logs, which is more costly, and even imports of wood chips.
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Source: bowenislandundercurrent.com