In the face of significant challenges—from mill closures to tariffs and shifting global markets—one question we hear more than any other from people: “What can I actually do to help?” When the headlines are dominated by uncertainty, it can feel like the hurdles facing the forest industry are too large for any one person to influence. But there is a powerful way to make your voice heard and tell the provincial government it isn’t just an industry priority but a priority for every British Columbian that wants a resilient future.
That way is Forestry is a Solution. Forestry is a Solution is a province-wide initiative led by a broad coalition of workers, community leaders, and industry advocates. Every name added to the list strengthens our collective message of support for communities, workers and families who depend on BC forestry. It has never been easier:
- Visit forestryisasolution.com
- Sign the petition to show our collective strength.
- Send a letter using the simple, automated tool to tell your MLA why this sector matters to you.
We find ourselves once again compelled to address the 
Finding uses for every part of a harvested tree can create renewable heat and electricity that will help power cleaner communities. Seeing Investment Tax Credits (ITCs) for biomass projects come into effect is a welcome, long-overdue step for Canada’s forest sector. After years of uncertainty, the measure offers a starting point to restore investor confidence. Biomass projects give new life to forest residuals — materials like bark, sawdust, and wood chips — by turning them into reliable, locally sourced heat and electricity. These biomass projects can modernize mill operations, sustain and grow jobs in rural and northern communities, and strengthen Canada’s position as a secure producer of renewable resources. Canada’s forestry industry directly employs almost 200,000 Canadians and supports an additional 200,000 jobs in transportation, maintenance, and manufacturing across the country. Hundreds of rural and northern communities depend on a strong forest sector.
OTTAWA — Provincial rules around alcohol and the federal government’s “Buy Canadian” policy have been flagged in a new report citing several trade irritants between Canada and the US. The annual document prepared by the Office of the US Trade Representative said market access barriers imposed by provincial liquor control boards “greatly hamper” exports of US wine, beer and spirits to Canada. …The report says U.S. companies have reported concerns about barriers in competing for contracts, including proving their Canadian subsidiary’s independence from a US parent company. Other issues listed in the report include delays with aircraft validation in Canada and high tariffs on U.S. dairy products. …Canada is still being slammed by Trump’s separate tariffs on industries like steel, aluminum, autos, lumber and cabinets. The Trump administration has launched investigations of a long list of countries, including Canada, citing forced labour in supply chains. 
The US says in a new report that Canada is failing to stop foreign goods made with forced labour from entering its market, a finding that coincides with Washington’s probe into the matter, which could lead to more tariffs. The 2026 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers from the US government says it appears Canada is importing goods that cost less than they should because they were made with forced labour. It’s an early indication of how the US will rule on Canada. …US customs policy treats all goods from China’s Xinjiang region as though they were made with forced labour unless importers can provide “clear and convincing evidence” to the contrary. …Canada passed a law, the 
West Kelowna family-owned forestry company – Gorman Group – has completed a $120 million deal to transfer harvesting tenures from Seattle-based Weyerhaeuser, with the move continuing the strategic partnership with the Osoyoos Indian Band’s Nk’Mip Forestry division. …Dan Macmaster, Head of Forestry at Nk’Mip Forestry, told the Times Chronicle that this agreement continues with the transfer of TFL 59 to Gorman and “We meet regularly to review and update all land use activity on the tenure. This agreement was put in motion with Weyerhaeuser last year and has improved and evolved since the transfer of the licence to Gorman.” …Nick Arkle, CEO, Gorman Group added, “We recognize that any Crown tenure transfer comes with important responsibilities and obligations to First Nations, communities and employees who depend on the long-term stewardship of the land and the careful use of the fibre.” …Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests said: “Gorman Group is investing in the future of forestry…”
Another suspicious fire has hit the Somass Lands on Port Alberni’s uptown waterfront, this time the remaining mill building. The call came in just before 9 a.m. on Tuesday, March 31. … Locked fire hydrants adjacent to the building presented another challenge, Port Alberni Fire Dept. Chief Mike Owens said. “It’s an old, historic industrial property; there are a number of places where the water main has been compromised,” he added. The city’s water works department arrived promptly and activated the hydrants. …Owens said crews immediately deemed the fire as suspicious because the sawmill is abandoned and there is no electricity run to the building. …The two mill buildings and a pair of silos were left standing after the city purchased the mill from Western Forest Products in 2021… When the city partnered with Matthews West developers, the thought was to possibly incorporate parts of the three buildings into a new master plan for the area.
Canadian officials are considering unusual measures to protect domestic producers of vegetables and wood products from low-priced imports. The move threatens to complicate Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts to fight US tariffs and strengthen Canada’s trade relationships with other countries, while also tackling cost-of-living challenges. Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne ordered an investigation last month into imports of frozen and canned vegetables. …He also said he’d received an “urgent” request for trade protection from makers of wood furniture, cabinets and flooring, adding that his department would respond soon. …The group behind the appeal on wood products, the Canadian Wood Products Alliance, is seeking a temporary tariff of 100 per cent to 125 per cent for four years, representative Alain Ouzilleau said. The measure would apply to all imports except those from the US. or Mexico, he added. …Canada wood-products manufacturers were already facing increased competition from China.
OTTAWA — New data released by Statistics Canada suggests the economy was rebounding in the first few months of the year after a mild contraction to close 2025. The agency said on Tuesday real gross domestic product edged up 0.1% in January, helped by strength in goods-producing industries, which expanded by 0.2%. Looking ahead, the agency added that its preliminary estimate for February suggests the economy grew 0.2% for the month, though it cautioned the figure would be revised. Statistics Canada’s initial estimates for January published last month expected real GDP to be relatively flat. Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO, said “it does look like we had moderate growth in the first quarter of the year, which, given a lot of the other indicators, is not a bad place to be”. …Statistics Canada estimated the economy contracted 0.5% on an annualized basis in the final quarter of 2025.
The economic headwinds facing B.C. are expected to have an even greater impact than originally expected, with accounting firm Deloitte Canada downgrading its economic forecast for the province in its most recent update. Originally projecting 1.6 per cent GDP growth in 2026 in its January report, the financial consulting giant now predicts B.C. will have “muted” growth of only 1.2 per cent. Dawn Desjardins, chief economist at Deloitte Canada, said some of the main culprits are the declining forestry sector, which continues to face mill closures and thousands of job losses due to a lack of fibre, as well as crippling U.S. duties, a population decrease, and uncertainty surrounding the future of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.
Today, not only is Canada in a housing affordability crisis, but Build Canada Homes (BCH), the new federal agency-turned-Crown Corporation tasked with building affordable housing at record speed and scale, is already largely staffed, selecting projects, and hoping to break ground by this fall.
Kalesnikoff Mass Timber is launching a new line of modular timber classrooms today at the world’s largest mass timber conference in Portland, Oregon, showcasing its innovation to thousands of attendees. The company said that the classrooms are designed to address growing pressures on school infrastructure across North America. “Many communities are growing, leaving local schools at capacity,” said Chris Kalesnikoff, President and C.E.O. of Kalesnikoff. “These new modulars can be built and deployed rapidly, are cost effective, and create a warm and exceptional learning environment for students and staff.” The modular classrooms, constructed of cross-laminated timber (CLT) from Kalesnikoff’s mass timber facility in the West Kootenays using high-quality B.C. wood, are highly adaptable. They can function as a single classroom or be combined into larger expansions or entirely new schools. They can also be built in single-storey, or stacked configurations, and arrive with pre-installed heating, plumbing and digital systems.
TOKYO — Leaders from the global forestry sector met last week in Tokyo to advance the 
WAKEFIELD, QC
The Government of British Columbia and Tla’amin Nation have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to enhance collaborative stewardship actions in Tla’amin Nation territory, focusing on advancing key treaty commitments through a shared stewardship framework. The MOU, or the yiχmɛtštəm ʔəms gɩǰɛ Territorial Stewardship Action Plan, sets out how the B.C. government and Tla’amin Nation will work together to care for land and water, heritage resources, and Tla’amin wildlife harvesting rights in the region. In the Tla’amin language, yiχmɛtštəm ʔəms gɩǰɛ means “together we are taking care of the land.” “With the signing of this memorandum of understanding, the Province and Tla’amin Nation have taken a significant step forward to implement key commitments of the Tla’amin Treaty,” said Randene Neill, Minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.
After roughly 100 sawmills, pulp mills, and engineered wood plants closed down or cut shifts since 2000, and thousands of loggers lost their jobs, the trade union representing those workers has its hands full. The consensus is: this is do-or-die time to stabilize the forest industry in British Columbia. USW Canada – District 3 represents workers across Western Canada, including BC’s unionized forestry workforce. Recently, District 3 Director Scott Lunny offered a forward-looking view of the industry on a podcast, despite the challenges it faces. Jeff Bromley, the union’s Wood Council Chair, put it this way: “What’s the alternative—giving up on rural communities throughout the province? We accept the responsibility to manage a transition in the best interest of our members.” …The Provincial Forest Advisory Council’s report, From Conflict to Care, has tabled a set of recommendations — and the Steelworkers Union agrees with its main thrust.
Textbook disaster capitalism. That’s how a forest advocacy group describes the Ministry of Forests’ Forest Statutes Amendment Act, a set of legislative changes to the Forests and Range Practices Act. “As social license for continuing to log primary forests dries up, the Ministry of Forests doubles down, accelerating logging while claiming that BC is a global leader in sustainable forest practices,” said Jenn Matthews, in a Conservation North news release. …The proposed changes would also expand ‘salvage’ logging, a controversial practice where trees are harvested following a natural disturbance. “Salvage logging – especially in forests that have never been logged – damages soils, wildlife habitat, and water flows,” said Conservation North’s director, ecologist Michelle Connolly. “Moreover, when you log after natural disturbance, you’re robbing the forest of key building blocks (including still-living trees) for the forest that will follow. The Ministry’s claim that this is forest stewardship is garbage.”
High in a tree in Vancouver’s Stanley Park, an arborist dangles from a climbing harness with a chainsaw… The work is part of a significant – and, to some, distressing – intervention to address the Hemlock looper moth outbreak that killed almost a third of the public park’s 600,000 trees between 2020 and 2023. …what’s happening in the park underscores the broader challenges of managing city green spaces in the era of climate change. …The city says those dead trees pose many risks, and the only way to deal with them is with saws. Joe McLeod, the city’s associate director of urban forestry, called it a “risk mitigation project for public safety.” …To better understand the twin risks of wildfire and falling trees, the city hired veteran wildfire ecologist and forester Bruce Blackwell. …None of this has sat well with Stanley Park Preservation Society founder, Michael Robert Caditz. …But fuel mitigation isn’t about preventing the most common fires; it’s about protecting against the worst possible ones, the kind of fires that occur on the most extreme weather days, when high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds combine to drive the wildfire risk into the red. [A Globe and Mail subscription is required for full story access]
PRINCE GEORGE – Canada’s forests are burning faster than they can be replanted, and the Canadian Tree Nursery Association is calling it a crisis, though not everyone agrees on the scale of the problem. The association says more than 7.3 billion seedlings would be needed just to replant 15 percent of the areas burned in the last three years of record wildfires. In B.C., the situation is worsening: seedling production is expected to decline from 300 million in 2024 to 226 million by 2026. Dr. Phil Burton, Professor Emeritus in Forest Ecology and Management at the University of Northern BC, agrees there’s a genuine problem but says the numbers need context. Millions of hectares that burned in places like the Northwest Territories were never part of the managed forest, he notes, and many forests are capable of recovering on their own. …The central debate isn’t whether any replanting is needed most agree some is. The question is how much, and who pays for it. 
TORONTO — Ontario is ready to protect people and communities this wildland fire season, which lasts from April 1 until October 31. In preparation, the province has added an additional 68 permanent staff and increased compensation for critical staff including wildland firefighters, pilots and aircraft maintenance engineers. …“Our government stands behind the wildland firefighters, pilots and support staff that make up our frontline response and we will ensure they have everything they need for the upcoming fire season,” said Mike Harris, Minister of Natural Resources. In addition to the new staffing measures, Ontario and Canada are investing in projects through the Wildfire Resilient Futures Initiative that will help enhance local training, education and outreach programs. These measures will ensure communities across the province are equipped with the tools and resources to prevent and mitigate wildland fire risks, while advancing science and research projects to reduce wildland fire risk.
WorkSafeBC is holding a virtual public hearing on proposed amendments to the Occupational Health and Safety Regulation. The virtual public hearing will be streamed live on April 21, 2026, in two sessions. The first will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and the second from 3 to 5 p.m. Further information on how to view or participate in the virtual public hearing will be provided closer to the hearing date. These details will be posted on 
Brian Bruce Welch passed away suddenly and unexpectedly on January 5, 2026. His loss is felt by all who knew him, and he will be remembered for his dedication to career, family, and friends. …Brian worked for years as a commercial fisherman… When terra firma called, Brian was welcomed by father Bruce E. Welch to formally join the family business, thus becoming the fourth generation to help carry forward the legacy of Olympic Forest Products Ltd, which operated continuously between 1932 and 2026 and was at one point amongst the top BC coastal forestry industry operators. Brian’s long career in the forest industry reflected both pride in family history and commitment to strengthening business for the future, often despite significant industry wide challenges and hurdles. …In 1988 Bruce Welch appointed Brian President of Olympic Forest Products Ltd, Bruce assuming the role of Chair for what had become a group of companies. Following family tradition, Brian served on the TLA board in 2002 and 2003, chairing the Industrial Committee and serving on the Worker Health & Safety Committee.
Ross Hay-Roe left this world on March 24, 2026, with his two children by his side, after three long years of living each day without the love of his life, Lee, as his constant companion. …After graduating high school, Ross studied Aeronautics at Cal Tech in Calgary and moved to Toronto where Ross worked on the Avro Arrow. His career as an Aeronautical Engineer ended abruptly the day the Canadian Government shut down the program in 1957. Ross made his way back to Edmonton where he studied commerce at the University of Alberta, later achieving the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) designation. Moving back to Toronto, Ross began working as a sell-side equity analyst focusing on the Forest Products industry. Moving around to various firms, Ross developed a great reputation in the industry… Ross and Lee helped to start an independent investment research shop called Equity Research Associates. Given the level of insight and critical thinking Ross brought to his analysis, his viewpoints were highly sought after. Ross expanded the firm’s forest products coverage and eventually sold the business, which now operates as ERA Forest Products Research.