Monthly Archives: March 2019

Taddea Kunkel and Erin Robinson

Construction is underway on the City of Quesnel’s new Forestry Innovation Centre, and the City’s new Forestry Initiatives Program is up and running. The City announced Wednesday (March 20) that the Forestry Initiatives Program (FIP), which began in January, is officially underway and moving forward. The program, which is operated by Forestry Initiatives Manager Erin Robinson and Forestry Initiatives Co-ordinator Taddea Kunkel, was created to address the multiple challenges facing our community at this time — mainly protecting our communities from wildfire, rehabilitating the land after wildfire, and finding ways of innovating the forest products manufacturing sector, according to a press release from the City. …The FIP is made possible through funding provided by the City of Quesnel, BC Rural Dividend, Community Resiliency Investment Program, Forestry Enhancement Society of British Columbia, and Cariboo Strong.

A family owned business in Castlegar is investing $35 million in a new engineered wood manufacturing plant that will add 50 new jobs, but which won’t need any more timber than it already consumes at its existing sawmill and manufacturing plant. …“They’re very high-end operational type jobs,” Kalesnikoff said. With a long-term decline in the annual allowable cut in B.C., both the NDP and previous Liberal governments have been trying to promote more value-added wood manufacturing in order to maximize the use of B.C. timber. The new plant definitely fits the value-added category because it doesn’t actually require any more timber than the company currently consumes at its existing sawmill and manufacturing plant, where it makes a product called “lamstock” for other engineered wood product manufacturers like Structurlam.

Three members of the Tsawout First Nation continue to protest a logging operation on Saturna Island, which has highlighted legal grey areas when it comes to First Nation land use. Since the middle of last week, three First Nation members, supported by a fluctuating number of Saturna Island residents, have remained on site, peacefully blocking tree falling. They are angry at their chief and council’s decision to contract a lumber company to fell trees on a 33,477 cubic metres stretch of community land on Saturna Island Indian Reserve No. 7.  …While the permits were issued legally, the opaque nature of how the Douglas treaties can be interpreted and legal issues about First Nations’ members’ rights to their land mean the unhappy community members are questioning how a council decision, made by a limited number of people often with family ties, can have such a large impact on their traditional way of life.

VANCOUVER, BC — Western Forest Products announced that it has published its first sustainability report, highlighting the Company’s governance, environmental and social practices and performance during 2018. The report is available at www.westernforest.com/responsibility. …Don Demens, President and Chief Executive Officer…“With this report, we are continuing the evolution of our sustainability disclosure: pledging to set goals, track progress and report on key performance measures.” The report outlines how Western is defining a higher standard in being accountable to our people, the environment, First Nations and the communities in which we operate, while producing the world’s most sustainable building material.

Workers at Western Forest Products’ Cowichan Bay sawmill believe that an upcoming two-week shutdown is a bargaining tactic by the forest company. …WFP director of communications Babita Khunkhun said the decision is directly related to poor international market conditions and the persistently high cost of the logs processed at the mill.” …But Brian Butler, president of United Steel Workers’ Local 1-1937, which represents workers at the mill, said this is a contract year for the coastal forest industry, and he believes the shut down is meant to dampen efforts by the workers to get the best deal they can in the collective bargaining process. …WFP announced last week that it was also curtailing work at its APD sawmill in Port Alberni for a month… for the same reasons.

An application for a permit amendment for Pinnacle Pellet will be the subject of an upcoming open house in Williams Lake. Rose Loerke, project leader at Pinnacle Renewable Energy Inc., is inviting the community to the event coming up March 28 …to share details of proposed upgrades to the Williams Lake plant, listen to members of the community and to have questions answered. “We’re looking at proposing an upgrade to the Williams Lake facility to improve our flexibility to process a variety of different fibre,” Loerke said. “We are requesting to add another dryer so we have the ability to process that fibre. Right now we’re a little bit constrained.” When asked if the upgrade would impact air quality, Loerke said that is a hard question to answer because the air dispersion modeling doesn’t take into consideration the amount of bush residuals which will be used by Pinnacle Pellet rather than burned in the cutblocks.

Kris Olsen

On Haida Gwaii, signs of reconciliation can be as small as the Indigenous artwork seen on [Queen Charlotte Village Mayor] Kris Olsen’s eyepatch. …It was nine years ago that its name changed under the Haida Gwaii Reconciliation Act, capping off a series of agreements and pieces of legislation that made reconciliation a political part of life, well before the vast majority of B.C.  …the biggest piece of advice Olsen and other local politicians have is the work of reconciliation continues long after the ceremonies are scheduled and the framework put in place. …Jaalen Edenshaw was the lead carver of the Gwaii Haanas Legacy Pole… He believes one of the biggest steps taken by local governments was by Port Clements in 2004, when it took intervenor status on a forestry-related lawsuit that established guidelines around consulting Indgenous communities before developing or exploiting lands. 

Premier John Horgan celebrated the sale of Catalyst Paper this week at the Crofton mill, but the government quietly retreated from a stand it took last summer to protect pensioners, in order to see the deal concluded. …The company was selling U.S. assets at the time, and the fear was it would break up B.C. operations and sell them piecemeal. In response, the government drafted a quick amendment to the pension regulations… required that if any or all of the three coastal mills… were sold or closed, the company would have to fund its outstanding pension obligations “immediately.” …But the pension shortfall remains outstanding, because the deal was exempted from the July regulation. …The premier’s office said Tuesday that Paper Excellence has unconditionally guaranteed the pensions. Catalyst will continue to make pension payments, and Paper Excellence has guaranteed it will step in if Catalyst is unable.