Ravi Parmar

Shortly before his appearance at a timber industry conference in Prince George this April, Ravi Parmar, British Columbia’s recently named forests minister, had blunt words for the industry his ministry regulates. “If you have fibre and you’re not using it, we’re coming for it,” Parmar said during an hour-long sit-down interview with John Brink, a veteran of the province’s value-added forest products industry. …The list includes Canfor, West Fraser, Interfor and a number of others. …If Parmar is looking for where he might set a much-needed new tone, he’d be hard pressed to find a better candidate than Fort Nelson. …For 13 years after delivering that economic gut punch, Canfor sat on its Fort Nelson forest licence, logging not a single tree as the community’s increasingly frustrated municipal and business leaders looked on.