Premier David Eby told the annual gathering of the B.C. Council of Forest Industries (COFI) on Friday said that the government plans to ease industrial carbon prices for pulp mills as the province’s forestry sector continues to struggle to remain competitive.

“We have been working with COFI to address costs faced by the sector,” he said. “Whether it is in relation to water permits or carbon pricing.”

B.C. axed its consumer carbon tax last year, but kept industrial carbon pricing, a mechanism by which companies must pay for the pollution they release into the atmosphere. This pricing system ideally encourages producers to clean up.

But Eby says the government wants to make it fair for pulp mills, which cannot easily reduce emissions coming from lime kilns.

“Putting costs on for no reason, for no end goal, is something that we do not want to do,” Eby said. These changes come amid deep struggles for B.C.’s forest industry, with mill closures and job losses across the province. The last workers left Domtar’s Crofton pulp mill just days before the COFI convention.

The primary issue for the industry is the punishing American duties and tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber, which make B.C. forest products prohibitively expensive south of the border. Other complaints include lack of access to economically viable timber, excessive red tape and long permitting times.

Interim B.C. Conservative Leader Trevor Halford also spoke at the convention on Friday.
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Source: todayinbc.com