Kevin Mason
The Global Supply Chain Pressure Index, which provides a gauge of global supply chain conditions, spiked in April and currently sits at its highest level in almost four years. Several other measures, including the World Bank’s Supply Chain Stress Index are hovering around all-time highs as well. The conflict in the Middle East and resultant spike in energy prices has clearly driven some of the recent increase in supply chain pressure, and the logjam in the Strait of Hormuz, along with some ongoing challenges in the Red Sea, have forced many vessels to take longer routes, adding travel time, increasing fuel costs, and stretching capacity.
However, the situation in Iran is not the sole driver of recent supply chain pressure: In the US we are seeing an acute shortage of truck drivers following a government crackdown on driver qualifications and after a wave of trucking-firm bankruptcies. As a result, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ long-distance trucking price index has recently jumped from a reading of 181 in January to 210 in April (also approaching all-time highs last seen during the pandemic). Similarly, overland freight pricing data from DAT Freight and Analytics shows that flatbed truck rates have surged since the onset of the Iran war—the national average spot rate for flatbed trucks was $2.72 per mile in February and has rocketed to $3.64 by May. DAT’s national load-to-truck ratio (the number of loads posted for every available truck posted on the DAT load board) sat at an eye-watering 72 in April, up from 35 in April 2025 and just 19 in April 2024.
A deal with Iran may be in the works, but as we learned after the COVID pandemic, it can take months (if not years) for supply chains to normalize. Buckle up.
The Trump administration wants to reimpose a 10% tariff on top trading partners including the EU and Canada, while hitting others with a higher rate, citing concerns about forced labor. The US Trade Representative’s Office made those proposals as part of a report with the results of its investigation into 60 trading partners over their failure to impose and enforce laws to prohibit goods made with forced labor. It’s one of two sprawling trade investigations the administration launched earlier this spring in an effort to restore President Donald Trump’s global tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court in February. …The USTR probe, conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, found that six countries have failed to effectively enforce existing laws prohibiting goods made with forced labor: Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Indonesia, Mexico and Pakistan. The report recommended a 10% duty. It recommended the same duty for another nine countries.
Canada has given the US and Mexico official notice that it wants the free trade deal between the three countries to be renewed. In a letter to his American and Mexican counterparts, Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the country is seeking renewal of CUSMA when it comes up for review on July 1. LeBlanc is in Washington Tuesday for a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. All the signals from the White House over the past year and a half indicate that the Trump administration does not want a straightforward renewal of CUSMA and instead wants significant changes to its terms. …LeBlanc calls CUSMA “highly beneficial to each of our countries and to the integrated North American economy,” but goes on to acknowledge that the other countries may want to propose “improvements.” …Whatever happens on July 1, CUSMA is slated to remain in effect until 2036. 
FORT ST. JOHN, BC — After much speculation, the Canfor sawmill in Fort St. John has officially been sold to outside interests. Canfor media relations representatives confirmed the sale of the sawmill, planer, pellet plant and energy systems to Rocky Mountain Salvage on May 29th. Rocky Mountain Salvage is a scrap metal and garbage recycling company with interests in Hinton and Edson, Alberta. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Since announcing the closure of the Fort St. John sawmill, Canfor is working to divest the site and assets,” said Canfor. …The sawmill was announced as closing in September 2024, affecting 220 jobs, along with a facility in Chetwynd.
Framing lumber sales were slow to get started after the long holiday weekend in the US in most markets. Many buyers paused early to assess market conditions – especially prospects for shipping any new orders – before resuming moderate replenishment as the week progressed. Prices shifted modestly. Recent trends in sales of western S-P-F were little changed. Discounts grew increasingly tougher for buyers to procure as order files lengthened and mills cleared existing accumulations. …Lumber futures were little changed week to date, with the front month trading near par with the cash market in most deliverable species. …Southern pine mill sales outpaced producers’ ability to ship the loads, and backlogs of sold lumber continued to accumulate throughout the distribution pipeline. Prices shifted mildly with sales frequently reported on both sides of last week’s reported levels. …In the Inland market, prices were predominantly flat, or mildly higher in a few cases.
Canadian wood producers and manufacturers say they know how to solve the country’s housing shortage and, at the same time, increase demand in the construction industry for their products. The “two-fer” solution is laid out in a recent report published by the Canada West Foundation. The report is based on a December 2025 roundtable at which the Canadian Wood Council and the Forest Products Association of Canada convened leaders from construction and forestry to discuss how to increase the use of wood products in prefabricated, modular and panelized wood construction in residential multi-storey buildings. In the CWF report, these methods of construction are identified collectively as Modern Methods of Construction, or MMC. Eric Johnson, for FPAC and CWC, says factory-built components make better use of materials and skilled labour, reducing waste and increasing productivity. …The biggest barriers to scaling up wood-based housing are not technical but regulatory and organizational.
We studied the efficiency and productivity of BC’s secondary wood manufacturing sector using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist total factor productivity index (MPI), while incorporating data from both a survey on individual firms and Statistics Canada’s sectoral data. DEA results showed that BC’s secondary wood manufacturing firms had low efficiency and the factor contributing to the inefficiency was more lack of technical capability than scale of operations in most of the business types. The MPI results reveal that SWM consistently underperforms relative to the sawmill and panel sectors, with a clear divergence emerging after the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Weak productivity growth is largely attributable to limited and inconsistent technical change, reflecting a lack of innovation and adoption of new technologies. Policies aimed at supporting the sector could focus on factors improving firms’ technical efficiency and frontier such as process optimization, technology adoption and innovation, and training and skill development.
The natural cooling effect of snow in northern forests following forest fires is rapidly diminishing. As a result, a fragile climate equilibrium threatens to disappear, potentially leading to additional warming in one of the most climate-sensitive regions on Earth. This is the conclusion of new research by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. …After a forest fire, the landscape in northern regions often remains open and covered with snow for a long time. This snow reflects a great deal of sunlight and makes the Earth’s surface brighter—an effect known as snow albedo. For years, this compensated for part of the warming caused by CO2 emissions from forest fires. [The study found] that the cooling effect of snow has decreased by nearly 30 percent since the 1960s. Whereas in the past almost half of Canadian forest fires eventually reached natural climate equilibrium …this now applies to only about one in four or five fires.
Globally, fires in 2025 burned the second-lowest area on record since 2002 and emitted the third-lowest CO2 total. Yet, a third successive year of extreme wildfire emissions prevailed in Canada, and catastrophic fires in Los Angeles, South Korea and Europe killed over 90 people and forced over 300,000 evacuations. At the global scale, land area burned by wildfire has declined in since 2002, mainly owing to reduced savannah burning in Africa. However, wildfires are expanding in extratropical forests, and show increasing intensity combined with extreme socioeconomic and environmental impacts1–3. In these areas, wildfire disasters are exacerbated by human land use and the wildland–urban interface4. Many regions are experiencing episodes of extreme wildfires with high rates of spread and intensity associated with substantial loss of life, infrastructure, or carbon stores, even in years with below-average burned area. These hallmarks define an era of declining global burned area but also of rising prominence of extreme and deadly wildfires.
Suzanne Simard’s 1997 forest experiment did not show trees whispering to each other. It showed something narrower, stranger, and easier to test: carbon that began in the air around a paper birch seedling later appeared inside a neighbouring Douglas fir, after passing through roots and fungal tissue in the soil. The experiment, published in Nature in August 1997, used two carbon labels in the field. Paper birch and Douglas fir seedlings were sealed in plastic labelling chambers, exposed to carbon-14 dioxide or carbon-13 dioxide, left for a nine-day chase period, then harvested and analysed to see where the labelled carbon had gone. The result was not a fairy tale about kindness. It was a measurement. Carbon moved both ways between Betula papyrifera, the paper birch, and Pseudotsuga menziesii, the Douglas fir, with a net gain by Douglas fir in the second year of the field experiment. 
The Province is investing $155 million toward reforestation programs to plant more than 125 million trees throughout BC. The funding, which also includes investments from the federal government, will deliver both large-scale reforestation and targeted projects that restore critical habitats, conserve biodiversity and support wildfire recovery. “Since 2017, we’ve invested in planting 400 million trees in B.C. Now, we’re adding 125 million more,” said Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests. “As we head into the Council of Canadian Forest Ministers Conference, hosted right here at home, we’re showing how B.C. continues to lead not only in forestry, but in reforestation and restoration. The Province’s reforestation investments will support: more than $56 million for reforestation, more than $1 million for B.C.’s Riparian Recovery Project, and more than $99 million for large-scale reforestation through the BC Forest Investment Program. …B.C. has secured more than $200 million in federal funding for reforestation and habitat restoration initiatives in British Columbia…
In 2024, the Tsay Keh Dene Nation and McLeod Lake Indian Band bought a logging licence near the town of Mackenzie from Canfor for $69M. …“It’s just a huge step to have some local Indigenous nations who are vested in our community step forward,” Makenzie Mayor Atkinson said. …But what if Canfor and others aren’t logging at rates close to what their licences say they can? If they sell such licences, what should those licences be valued at? And what role should the B.C. government play as the party that issues those licences and must approve any future sales? …Canfor, West Fraser and Western Forest Products alone control 39% of the timber that the government has firmly committed to logging companies. For decades, successive provincial governments granted logging licences to companies on the requirement that the public get something in return. The quid pro quo was that the companies would build mills.
The Syilx Okanagan Nation is calling on the federal government to issue an emergency order protecting critical habitat for Southern Mountain Caribou. In a filing under Section 80 of the federal Species at Risk Act, the Syilx Okanagan Nation is calling for immediate and enforceable protections for habitat used by the Columbia North, Frisby-Boulder and Central Selkirk herds, which occupy areas within Syilx Okanagan territory in southern British Columbia. “The current provincial and federal recovery measures have failed to address ongoing habitat destruction and cumulative effects across caribou ranges,” Chief Dan Wilson of the Okanagan Indian Band said in a media release. … “The continued logging of critical caribou habitat is inconsistent with Syilx Forestry Principles and Standards, yet the province continues to authorize logging in these core areas,” Coun. Jordan Coble, chair of the Syilx Nation Natural Resource Committee said in a media release.
MANITOBA — A northern Manitoba tree-planting program is trying to replace trees destroyed by wildfires, but the cancellation of the federal two billion trees program is making that more challenging. In 2016, this forest in Manitoba’s Interlake region, about 300 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, was devastated by a jack pine budworm infestation. It was starting to regenerate when wildfire ravaged the Devils Lake area in 2021. Areas just north are already burning this spring. Marley Moose says she felt sad when she returned to the forest three years ago as part of a tree-planting program through Nekoté LP, an Indigenous-owned corporation representing seven Swampy Cree First Nations in northern and central Manitoba. According to the Canadian Tree Nursery Association (CTNA), the country is losing trees faster than nature can grow them or people can plant them.
A new logging road project on the Sunshine Coast has drawn concern from local environmental advocates. At the same time, provincial officials say the work is designed to improve access and protect water resources. The Ministry of Forests confirmed to Coast Reporter that it is responsible for the road-building contract tied to Timber Sale Licence A94817. This project will see “just over 4km” of new road constructed to “move industrial traffic away from high-use public roads” and to create long-term access for multiple user groups. The ministry also said that the design has “enhanced overland techniques to minimize impacts to ground water,” along with water-quality monitoring and environmental oversight. However, Elphinstone Logging Focus’s (ELF) Ross Muirhead says the scope of the project is unusual for the region, saying four kilometres of brand new logging road is “unprecedented” on the Coast and that most projects are much shorter.
The start to the 2026 wildfire season has been slow with the number of fires raging across the country well below average, but government officials warn that as the summer progresses there’s a risk things could get much worse. “Despite the fact that we’re seeing so little activity so far this year … this summer retains the potential to be a significant one right across the country,” a government official said Thursday during a technical briefing. The official said that while the wildfire risk is unlikely to result in a record-breaking year like 2023 or 2025, the federal government is forecasting above average conditions as the season progresses. Whether that happens depends, officials explained, on what happens to the weather over the next few months. If the above average temperatures predicted for across the county come to pass, B.C. faces the highest wildfire risk, particularly in July.
Olds College entomologist Ken Fry says forest tent caterpillars are native to Alberta and relatively common, but their populations go through cycles in which they increase dramatically. Municipalities in Alberta are advising residents of an increase in the caterpillars this spring. “Roughly every 10 years populations increase enormously,” he said. The cyclical population explosion is called an outbreak. He said the causes of these cyclical outbreaks are still being studied but are believed to be influenced by weather, health status of trees, and other factors like predators, parasites and disease. Forest tent caterpillars are perhaps best known for the damage they inflict on trees. …”Trees can usually withstand a one-season munching, but when it comes to prolonged persistent defoliation over two, three years, that can result in some twig death or branch death or die back, you know, vulnerability over the winter to winter kill, things like that,” Fry said.
WHISTLER — As Western spruce budworm populations continue to spread through Whistler’s forests at historically unprecedented levels, the BC government is preparing to spray thousands of hectares around the resort municipality with a biological insecticide to blunt the outbreak. The Ministry of Forests is planning to aerially treat areas using Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (Btk)—a naturally occurring soil bacterium used for decades to control defoliating insects. Taylor Holt, the provincial resource coordinator, said… the aerial overview surveys in 2025 picked up 275,000 hectares of damage. [It’s] nearly three times as much damage as noted ever historically.” …Cheakamus Community Forest (CCF) executive director Heather Beresford, said. “So this is really the only viable treatment.” Still, she acknowledged the decision comes with uncomfortable trade-offs between wanting to prevent dead trees from posing a wildfire risk and protecting local non-budworm species who will be affected by spraying BtK.
Prescribed burning is getting renewed attention in parts of B.C. as communities look for ways to reduce wildfire risk before summer. In Kimberley, B.C., that conversation recently took residents onto the trails near the city’s nature park. The city-led walk gave residents a look at treated areas where crews have been reducing forest fuels. They also heard from local fire officials and wildfire specialists about how planned fire can help protect nearby homes, trails and forested parkland from wildfire risk. Kimberley Fire Department Chief Will Booth says the tour was meant to help residents understand prescribed burning before more fuel management work happens in the city. The local tour comes as prescribed and cultural burning are getting more public attention after years of being less visible. …Bob Gray, a wildland fire ecologist and fire scientist, says warmer temperatures and drought are adding pressure to forests that already have too many trees competing for moisture.
In 2025’s budget, Ontario allotted $135 million for its Emergency Forest Firefighting fund, which Firefighter Noah Freedman describes as money that “keeps the lights on.” The province ended up spending double that: $271 million, according to this year’s budget. But that same document penciled in just $150 million again for this year. The province did not respond to requests from Canada’s National Observer asking why the budget hasn’t been increased. Not allotting adequate funds translates to real impacts on the frontlines, said Freedman, who is also vice president of Ontario Public Service Employees Union Local 703. He said last season was “riddled with logistical problems” due to a lack of available funding: not having crews and helicopters where they were needed, and scrambling to request more… “None of that is because of our leadership in our agency. It’s a result of not getting anywhere near the funding that we need to truly be decision-makers,” Freedman said.
Classification change policy in the Assessment Manual lists the possible reasons for changing a firm’s classification. Under this policy, a firm’s failure to provide timely, complete, and accurate information to WorkSafeBC, and to respond promptly to information requests or information provided by WorkSafeBC (the positive duties), is addressed under the heading of fraud or misrepresentation. This creates confusion when the contravention is inadvertent. Our Policy, Regulation and Research Department is releasing a discussion paper with proposed amendments to policy in the Assessment Manual to clarify how a contravention of the positive duties is interpreted in the context of classification change. The discussion paper and information on how to provide feedback can be found here: 
