Kevin Mason
U.S. housing starts slumped to just 1.22MM seasonally-adjusted units in September as single-family building activity declined to 859,000 (the lowest monthly total in 12 months). Multifamily starts didn’t fare much better, coming in at just 362,000, the second-lowest monthly reading for the year. On an actual basis, September starts of just under 104,000 marked the lowest unadjusted total since February. …Through the first nine months of the year, adjusted U.S. housing starts are averaging 1.35MM, down from a FY2025 average of 1.36MM. However, over the past three months of data, starts have averaged just 1.29MM. With sky-high mortgage rates and broad-based macroeconomic malaise (record-high diesel prices, inflationary pressures, rock-bottom consumer confidence, etc.) we expect that homebuilding activity will remain sluggish through year end, most likely resulting in a fifth consecutive y/y decline for U.S. housing starts for FY2026.
We tend to focus heavily on conditions in the U.S. housing market given that it is by far the biggest driver of North American wood products demand. However, when we look at the current state of housing in Canada and some key Asian markets (both of which also consume meaningful volumes of North American wood products), it is clear that the U.S. housing market isn’t alone in its struggles year-to-date. In Canada, total starts are off by ~4% ytd through September. In China, residential floor space started continues to decline—it’s off by a further 25% ytd, following y/y annual declines ranging from ~11% to ~40% in the five years between 2021 and 2025. …The Japanese housing market is holding up a little better, with total housing starts increasing by 2.2% ytd. Still, Japanese starts have been trending steadily lower for over a decade now.
Donald Trump was rebuked by tariff-weary voters in midterm elections, but one of the US president’s main targets — Canada — still faces a dilemma about what to do next. The trade war became a problem for Republicans in northern battleground states. …Late in the election campaign, Trump said several times that he expected to have a deal with Canada soon to reduce trade frictions. …With Democrats set to take control of the House and Senate, Trump’s ability to pass laws and appointments will be constrained. But he can continue to sidestep Congress and issue executive orders. …House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised the Democrats would pass a bill to “stop the stupid Trump tariffs jacking up prices on Americans.” But Trump has the power to veto such legislation. … “I don’t think they’re prepared to concede too much on the core issue,” said Barry Appleton, of the New York Law School Center for International Law.
A thumping, a shellacking, maybe even a disaster. …The Democrats will take control of both the House and the Senate. …Voters clearly sent a message that they are angry about the Republican president’s failure to deliver on his promise of lowering prices, punishing him in particular for pursuing the war in Iran and for launching his tariff regime. …Canadians have been paying much more attention than usual, in large part because of the potential impact on how Trump deals with the country that he keeps threatening to make the 51st state. Federal and provincial government officials have quietly been hoping a Republican spanking in the midterms would give Canada more leverage in trade talks with the Trump administration. …Democrats signalled they would act quickly to advance legislation. Among their targets: restoring the health insurance subsidies, taking down Trump’s tariffs and blocking authorization for the war against Iran.
Canadian pulp producer 
MONTREAL — The European Union and Canada have agreed to build the closest possible relationship. Over the next six months, they will have to define what that means — and whether Canada can become the EU’s first, and perhaps only, associate member. A summit in Montreal last week highlighted the urgency behind the budding relationship. Both sides say their partnership is positive and not directed against any country. But it is also driven by mutual need: to shore up supply chains, pool expertise and reduce reliance on the United States and China. Mark Carney told POLITICO in an interview that the two sides should not be tailoring their partnership to cope with the potential reactions of other powers. …
Canada’s month-over-month trade surplus with the United States widened to $12.3 billion in September from $12.1 billion, with exports slightly increasing after the implementation of Section 338 tariffs in late August. Exports to the U.S. rose 0.7 per cent in September, mainly due to higher shipments of unwrought gold and crude oil, according to Statistics Canada. Imports from the U.S. increased 0.4 per cent due to higher shipments of processing units. …Canada reported the largest trade surplus in four years, which widened to $5.4 billion in September from $5 billion in August. Total exports increased 0.2 per cent month over month in September after increasing 3.2 per cent in August, mainly due to higher shipments of energy products, which rose 8.2 per cent. But declines were reported in eight of the 11 product sections. …In real, or volume, terms, exports were down four per cent in September.
Weak pulp and lumber markets have put heavily indebted forest products producers under growing pressure, with interest costs consuming cash that would otherwise go back into mills. One of the sector’s larger producers is now turning to a court-supervised restructuring that will hand most of the company to its bondholders in exchange for wiping out most of its debt. Shares of Mercer International are surging Tuesday after the company announced late Monday that it has signed restructuring support agreements. The agreements address $1.275 billion of senior notes and provide $400 million of fully backstopped new capital. …Mercer will implement the deal through a prepackaged Chapter 11 plan covering only the parent company and a non-operating Texas subsidiary. Confirmation is expected within about 45 days of filing, with completion targeted by the end of 2026. …The company plans to apply for a new exchange listing after emergence.
VANCOUVER, BC
As voters in North Carolina and across the nation head to the polls, the rising cost of seemingly everything is dominating much of the political discourse. While fuel prices get a lot of the attention, other products in North Carolina also are seeing price increases. …While inflation − the Federal Reserve said the U.S. annual inflation rate in September 2026 was 3.7% − is fueling price hikes across the board, tariffs are helping heat up costs. Key to the rising costs in certain North Carolina sectors is the growing trade war with Canada. …Canada is North Carolina’s largest export partner, representing 20.2%, or $8.7 billion worth of exports in 2024, according to the N.C. Department of Commerce. Residential building material prices, including lumber, are up nearly 10%. …On both sides of the border forest products, which can be especially important economic engines in rural areas, have found themselves targeted by tariffs.
MONTREAL — Stella-Jones announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2026. …Sales for the third quarter of 2026 increased to $979 million, up from $958 million in the same period last year driven by continued volume growth in wood utility poles and a strong contribution from the acquisition of Brooks Manufacturing. Gross profit was $168 million, or 17.2% of sales, in the third quarter of 2026, compared to $188 million, or 19.6% in the corresponding period last year. …Net income for the third quarter of 2026 was $51 million versus net income of $88 million in the corresponding period of 2025. …”Sales gains were largely offset by an unfavourable wood utility pole product mix, temporary downtime related the ramp-up of the steel structures capacity expansion project in Candiac, and a pricing lag in residential lumber,” said Eric Vachon, President and CEO of Stella-Jones.
EDMUNDSTON, New Brunswick – Acadian Timber reported financial and operating results1 for the three months ended September 26, 2026. During the third quarter, Acadian generated sales of $24.0 million compared to $23.0 million in the third quarter of 2025. Acadian generated $4.4 million of net income, $5.0 million of Adjusted EBITDA and $3.3 million of Free Cash Flow during the third quarter. The Board of Directors declared dividends of $5.4 million, or $0.29 per share, to our shareholders. Acadian’s balance sheet remains solid with $16.4 million of net liquidity as at September 26, 2026, which includes funds available under our credit facilities. …For the nine months ended September 26, 2026 timber sales and services were $62.0 million, $3.0 million lower than the same period of 2025. …”The changes that we made in Maine are paying off, with higher volumes and lower costs driving significantly stronger Adjusted EBITDA,” said Malcolm Cockwell, Interim CEO. 
At a time when Canada and the U.S. are struggling to address severe housing affordability challenges, the tariff war is pushing construction costs in both countries in precisely the wrong direction. While government leaders on both sides of the border have repeatedly pledged to increase housing supply, lower costs and make homeownership more attainable, escalating tariffs and counter-tariffs on both the residential and industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) construction industry are having the exact opposite effect. …Developers are already grappling with persistent labour shortages, elevated interest rates, soaring land prices, development charges and regulatory hurdles. Added to that list is now a new and destabilizing force: tariffs on key construction materials and building components that are essential to housing projects. …Every tariff imposed somewhere in the supply chain eventually leads to higher prices. That matters because the Canadian and American construction industries are deeply integrated. 
Curved glued-laminated (glulam) timber beams have been used in practice as structural components in roof systems and bridges, capitalizing on the architectural freedom of using wood as a building material. Despite their use in practice, there is limited experimental data on the structural behavior of curved glulam beams, both during fabrication and at their ultimate limit state. …Results of the study demonstrate that a complex state of strain, and thus stress, exists in a curved glulam beam after fabrication through mechanical bending of the laminations. Under structural loading, the studied beams exhibited a range of failure modes, which depended on the beam radius, including flexural failure in tension, shear failure, and radial tension failure. The experimental results are also compared with North American wood design standards, and the results suggest that these standards can predict the strength of the curved glulam beams tested in this study to within 5% of their ultimate load-carrying capacity.
Halifax will see greater support for housing development after the province announced it will remove barriers to improve growth. “Nova Scotia needs more housing, and these changes help build it. They support new housing in rural communities, make it easier to use new building approaches like mass timber and improve emergency access for existing communities,” said John White, Minister of Housing. …On Oct. 28, the province announced it will amend the Minimum Planning Requirement Regulations under the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter. This means strengthening a rule allowing residential housing in all zones unless specifically excluded. The changes underscore the importance of residential buildings in zones where hotels or other overnight accommodations are allowed to exist. It also require HRM to remove certain design requirements that can be a barrier to building mass timber residential buildings up to 12 storeys using modern methods. HRM must adopt the changes by Jan.15, 2027.
Almost half of the Parks Canada employees trying to help Jasper, Alberta, recover from a devastating 2024 wildfire could be among about 500 full-time staff facing job cuts nationwide. This news comes after nearly 3,000 Parks Canada staff around the country were sent letters notifying them of the upcoming cuts, and giving them the chance to voluntarily retire ahead of job losses. Of the roughly 3,000 letters sent by Parks Canada, 208 went to members of the 422-person Jasper Field Unit. Nearly two years after wildfire tore through Jasper, forcing the evacuation of the town and nearby Jasper National Park, Parks Canada crews are still busy cleaning up according to the federal government’s 
Surfers are worried about an… application by the Pacheedaht Anderson Timber Holdings partnership for a Crown lease to build a breakwater and log-dumping area in a bay just east of the Jordan River campground. …The primary worry for surfers is how the breakwater could change the patterns of sedimentation that shape all of the surfable waves in the area. …Angus Hope, for Pacheedaht Andersen Holdings, said the proposal is in its very early stages. Any construction, pending approvals, could be “three to five years” away, he said in an interview. While the coastline near Jordan River is now dotted with oceanside cottages and provincial parks, it was once the heart of a booming logging industry that employed thousands. …Pacheedaht Andersen Timber Holdings — a 50-50 partnership between Pacheedaht First Nation and Andersen Timber — formed in 2010 when it purchased the Jordan River Timber Tree Farm Licence (TFL61) from Western Forest Products.
WINNIPEG, Manitoba — Canada’s biofuels industry warned that some gaps remain in the government’s proposed rules aimed at matching US incentives, and that the changes are unlikely to spur investment in the world’s top canola producer. Under the proposed rules, unveiled over the weekend, Canadian biofuel producers would receive more credits from the government for producing biofuels in Canada. To meet low carbon emissions intensity limits, they can either produce low-intensity fuels themselves or buy credits from others. The changes would replace a system in which only the use of biofuels earns credits, and foreign-produced fuels receive the same amount. They are designed to “close the competitiveness gap facing Canadian low-carbon fuel producers so they can compete fairly with US producers,” Canada’s government said. …The rules include different rates for ethanol, biodiesel and other alternative fuels.
Critics say there is a stark contrast between PM Mark Carney’s international reputation as a climate champion and his domestic drive to expand oil and gas production. …After pushback on the term from member states, most of all Germany, the EU is now pushing for “ever closer association” with Canada, in the latest draft of a joint declaration due to be adopted at the end of the EU-Canada summit which starts today in Montreal. There is broad consensus amongst member states on closer cooperation with Canada on areas such as defence, critical raw materials, energy, trade and border security. Just this week the EU’s climate chief has told member states they must prepare for increasingly extreme weather, signalling that the Commission is taking climate preparedness seriously. But what about Canada? Here we look into Canada’s policies on oil and gas, the energy transition, carbon pricing and greenwashing.
