Region Archives: Canada West

Special Feature

Forest companies won’t invest in B.C. without changes by government

By Vaughn Palmer
Vancouver Sun
January 12, 2023
Category: Special Feature
Region: Canada, Canada West

Vaughn Palmer

VICTORIA — Premier David Eby offered the usual government solution to this week’s news of the permanent closure of pulp production at the Canfor mill in Prince George. Eby expressed sympathy for the 300 workers who’ll lose their jobs add said the government is dispatching a crisis response team to the community. The team will offer “training, transitioning to retirement, or other supports,” the premier told reporters in Vancouver on Thursday. …Eby did hint at more encouraging relief, when he was asked about the proposal from a coalition of pulp and paper producers for a “value-added transformation” of the industry. …“In terms of the specific proposals around support for innovation, we’ll have more to say in the coming days,” Eby said of the coalition submission. The premier is scheduled to deliver two major speeches on forest and resource themes next week — to the 20th annual B.C. Natural Resources forum and the annual convention of the Truck Loggers Association.

The Canfor board includes former NDP Premier Glen Clark. …Clark is also a lifelong New Democrat, who has lately offered to help the current government. “I’m not desperate for work or anything.” he told Jas Johal on CKNW this week. “I’m just saying I’m prepared and interested, but it’s up to others to decide whether they think I can help.” Eby said “that’s great news, and I look forward to working with him.” …But oh, to be a fly on the wall if Eby dared to ask Clark for advice on what to do in the forest sector.

 

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Opinion / EdiTOADial

The genesis of the mountain pine beetle firestorm and industry’s effort to contain it

Greg Jadrzyk, former president, Northern Forest Products Association
The Prince George Citizen
January 17, 2023
Category: Opinion / EdiTOADial
Region: Canada, Canada West

Greg Jadrzyk

Many of the reporters providing coverage on the mountain pine beetle epidemic in this province are too young to know how it truly unfolded and led to last weeks announcement of Canfor closing the PG Pulp Mill. …I was President of the Northern Forest Products Association (NFPA), which represented the interests of all the sawmills in the northern half of BC. The mountain pine beetle has always been in our forests and always will be. …However, as winters warmed up in the late 90s the beetle found a foothold in Tweedsmuir park and its populations started to explode. NFPA took up the fight in 1998 with a massive public awareness campaign in BC and numerous trips were made to visit MPs in Ottawa. …British Columbians will also have forgotten that forest industry attempts to log the initial infestation in the park to avoid its spread was opposed vigorously by the entire environmental movement and government.

What of course unfolded was a historic firestorm of beetles with immense populations that ravaged and killed over 85% of the lodgepole pine forests in the interior, including young plantations, over the next 10 years. NFPA member attempts to speed up logging to contain the spread of the beetle were met with opposition from within government, thereby allowing the vast areas of healthy timber to be infested and die. Yes portions of those dead forests were logged over the last 25 years but the fiber was not the same value and many areas simply died because the size of the devastation was too great. …It took 15 to 24 years to begin to feel the full effects of the epidemic but those effects, namely closure of interior mills due to a lack of timber have occurred, with Prince George Pulp being one of the latest casualties. Regrettably, there will be more closures in the years ahead as the fiber supply shortages continue.

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Business & Politics

Running on Empty: The BC Forestry Crash

By Ben Parfitt
The Tyee
January 18, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

The coming closure of a pulp mill in Prince George and the loss of 300 high-paying jobs is just the beginning of what promises to be a new and painful chapter for the province’s beleaguered forest industry, which has already lost more than 40,000 direct jobs in the past 20 years.    …Most of the readily accessible primary forests in that 80,000-square-kilometre land mass are gone, stripped of their green gold by the logging industry in the space of just 50 years.  …The evidence has long been clear that a supply crisis loomed. But rather than reduce logging rates immediately so as to avoid an even worse day of reckoning, provincial governments have for decades elected to roll the dice, keep logging rates artificially high and gamble that the carnage would happen on someone else’s watch.

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Teal Jones – A value-added job-creation story 7 decades in the making

Teal Jones Group
January 17, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

New BC Premier David Eby and forests minister Bruce Ralston are setting out to remake the province’s forestry industry to one that crafts high-value products here at home rather than shipping raw logs for milling elsewhere. By creating more finished products here, the industry would support more jobs with less timber. Crafting innovative wood products locally is a familiar theme for Teal Jones. It’s what we’ve always done. When founder Jack Jones returned from the Second World War he used his army stipend to start the company as a one-man cedar roofing mill. It wasn’t long before his sons were old enough to start cruising timber and bringing in the cedar he needed to cut shingles, shakes, and siding with his growing labour force. Today, his sons Tom and Dick remain true to their father’s legacy, employing more than 1,000 British Columbians across the entire process – from planning harvests to replanting new forests. Well over half of those employees work in value-added milling and manufacturing, more than 500 at the company’s Surrey headquarters alone. 

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BC resource sector continues decline… governments continue to support more job losses

By Will Verboven
The Brooks Bulletin
January 18, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Past columns on BC follies highlighted the absurdity and hypocrisy of BC and federal government policies to destroy its once-thriving resource economy. Of course, it’s all woke and politically correct justified to save the planet and undo past injustices. But unfortunately, all that tends to ignore the severe economic impact on the livelihood of thousands of workers and their families. But then most of those unfortunates don’t vote for progressive green-left political parties. …One can see the change with the BC NDP government placing moratoriums on harvesting old-growth forests. New BC Premier Eby refers to the forest sector as being exhausted. I suspect that is his code word for shutting down even more of the industry. …I expect Premier Eby will use the same tactics to restrict the forestry sector as Trudeau uses against Alberta’s energy industry – death by a-thousand regulations, project delays, environmental assessments and carbon taxes. 

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Forestry policy under fire following announcement of PG Pulp Mill shutdown

By Caden Fanshaw
CKPG TV Prince George
January 16, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Pat Bell

PRINCE GEORGE – In the last 15 months, four pulp mills in BC have shuttered as a result of a lack of fibre, a figure even worse than projected by forestry economists. Record-breaking forest fires, a mountain pine beetle epidemic, and an environmental push to restrict and safe parts of BC’s forests for caribou all factors in a consistent decline in available fibre for mills. With the fibre that is left, critics argue there is still a lot that can be done. Former BC Minister of Forests Pat Bell argued the province can still find a way for Canfor to reverse their decision on PG Pulp Mill operations but they must act fast. “The disappointing part of this is it didn’t have to happen,” said Bell. Bell said during his time as BC’s Minister of Forests, he successfully restarted multiple pulp mills, including the one in Mackenzie, which shuttered in 2008 before being restarted. [END]

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B.C.’s forest industry faces a ‘reckoning,’ premier says, amid disagreement over who to blame

By Andrew Kurjata
CBC News
January 17, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

David Eby

Premier David Eby says B.C.’s forest industry is facing a “reckoning” following last week’s announcement that 300 jobs will be lost at a Prince George pulp and paper mill. Eby is in the city to deliver remarks at the B.C. Natural Resources Forum, an annual gathering of industry and political leaders. …In an interview on Monday, Eby addressed remarks made by union representative Chuck LeBlanc blaming the cuts in part on the provincial government’s decision to temporarily defer logging in about one million hectares of forest while it comes up with an old-growth management plan. …Eby countered by saying the deferrals are just a small part of a decade of challenges which include massive forest fires and the rise of the mountain pine beetle in the late 1990s. …Eby said his goal is to develop a long-term plan that recognizes the challenges facing the industry and the communities that rely on the jobs it creates.

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MLA Rustad says Prince George could suffer $50 million impact from mill closure

By Ted Clarke
Prince George Citizen
January 14, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

The permanent closure at the Canfor’s Prince George Pulp and Paper’s pulp line will put 300 mill employees out of work and those lost wages could take $30 million out of the local economy,  And that’s just the immediate impact. Nechako Lakes MLA John Rustad says that for every job lost at the mill, local contractors, suppliers, retail stores and service providers will also feel the pinch once the mill closes in March.   “It’s obviously incredibly challenging and very difficult for the families and workers affected and it’s not just the direct jobs, the forest sector has a 2-to-1 ratio in the jobs that are going to be impacted in our community and that’s really tough for so many people,” said Rustad.  …“If you carry on with the approach of not being able to make money eventually you get to place where you might be putting people’s pensions at risk,” said Rustad. 

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We Wai Kai First Nation on Vancouver Island frustrated by land transfer delays

CBC News
January 13, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

In June 2019, the We Wai Kai First Nation signed an incremental treaty agreement with B.C.’s provincial government. While making the announcement, the province said this first step toward a treaty would bring the community early economic opportunities, increased participation in the local forest economy and long-term benefits.  Over three years later, We Wai Kai Chief Ronnie Chickite says B.C. has yet to hand over any of the 30 square kilometres of land in the Lower Campbell River area of Vancouver Island that was promised in the initial agreement.   …Chickite describes the land in question as “rich in forest.” He says the First Nation selected the parcel specifically for forestry because it’s an ideal site to harvest valuable fir and cedar trees.   …Chickite says the We Wai Kai purchased a logging company as part of its plan to start a new timber operation on Vancouver Island. 

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Prince George rally planned in wake of Canfor pulp line closure

By Hanna Petersen
The Prince George Citizen
January 15, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

A rally is in the works to protest the recently announced closure of the pulp line at Canfor’s Prince George Pulp and Paper Mill. The closure will result in the loss of 300 jobs and Canfor is blaming a lack of fibre for its pulp operations. …Canfor said the specialty paper facility at the mill will stay open. Organizers of the rally say the closure will be a big blow to workers and the community at large. The rally… coincides with the attendance of BC Premier David Eby at a dinner during the annual Northern Resource Forum in Prince George at which he is expected to speak on the government’s forest policy. …Rally organizers from Stop the Spray BC supported by Conservation North and Stand Up for the North Committee said they the rally will be an opportunity for everyone to have their voices heard.

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Northern Alberta communities push for better rail freight service to move forest products, grain

By Michelle Bellefontaine
CBC News
January 13, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

About 20 northern Alberta municipalities and industry associations are joining forces to lobby for better rail freight service for their region. The Community Rail Advocacy Alliance plans to lobby the federal and provincial government and talk to CP and CN in hopes of improving what its members say is inconsistent access to rail cars in northern Alberta. Members include the Alberta Forest Products Association, the Alberta Wheat and Barley Commissions, Grande Prairie, Edson, High Level, Slake Lake, Whitecourt, Peace River, Mackenzie County, Northern Sunrise County, County of Northern Lights and the Municipal District of Peace. Industry associations are frustrated about rail access for their members. Municipal councils are concerned about the effects on their communities. “One of our local industry partners had to reduce shifts and of course now you’re talking about people’s jobs,” Edson Mayor Kevin Zahara said. 

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The closure of Canfor’s pulp and paper mill is part of a troubling trend unravelling the trade and the environment

By Hiran Mansukhani
The Prince George Post
January 15, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Chuck LeBlanc… president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada… says having to field concerns from his junior comrades and see their furrowed faces, which once beamed with ambition, weighs on him. …The layoffs were more than just sad news for the workers — the whole of Prince George underwent a period of mourning. Joel McKay, CEO of Northern Development Initiative Trust, called the news devastating. Eby and MLA Shirley Bond couched their sorrow in the same expression. …“It was not a matter of if but when,” said Brink, the CEO of Brink Forest Products. …Brink ascribes the industry’s woes to the mountain pine beetle infestation in 2001. …Then, in 2017 and 2018, wildfires engulfed forests in the Interiors. To preserve the remaining trees, the government slashed the annual allowable cut. …But Ben Parfitt, at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, says the plight of forestry companies is a reckoning of failed government policies.

Additional coverage in CKPG Today by Jack Clark: Union representing laid-off workers reacts to PG Pulp closure

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Eyes on Eby to support struggling B.C. forestry sector

By Rob Shaw
Business in Vancouver
January 14, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Rob Shaw

Hopes are high in B.C.’s forestry sector that Premier David Eby might be ready to offer up some sort of financial assistance to a beleaguered industry that is shutting down mills and laying off hundreds of people. …Eby is set to speak to the Natural Resources Forum in Prince George and the BC Truck Loggers convention in Vancouver. He’d get standing ovations at both if he committed to some sort of government assistance. Instead, more than likely, he’ll …stall for time by making vague promises about boosting the “value-added” sector of the industry through “innovation.” It sounds good, but it never happens. It requires forest companies to invest millions in retooling their mills to produce those new “value-added” products, and they seize up with hesitancy because they can’t get straight answers out of the province on key issues of forest policy. …Someone should break the cycle of dysfunction between the New Democrat administration and the major players of B.C.’s forestry sector. 

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Keith Ave. log yard back in business

By Rod Link
The Terrace Standard
January 15, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

A once dormant log yard has come back to life at the far western end of Keith Ave. in the light industrial sector of the city. For the past months it’s been the collection point for companies selling small-diameter logs to interior processors. That’s thanks to a new venture by a business arm of the Lax Kw’alaams Band that owns the Poirier yard. Carl Sampson who is the chief operating officer for Lax Kw’allams Business Development, said the logs are destined for the Kalum Logistics site, owned by the Kitsumkalum First Nation’s economic development arm. From the Kalum Logistics location just across the Kalum River adjacent to Kitsumkalum, the logs will be sent east to various locations, he said. …Kim Haworth, the general manager of the City of Terrace-owned community forest, one of the companies sending logs to the yard, is excited about the opportunities now opening up.

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Expect more B.C. sawmill closures in 2023

By Nelson Bennett
Business in Vancouver
January 16, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Resource companies in Western Canada had a good year in 2022, which means provincial and federal governments had a good year, thanks to royalties and taxes. But a series of federal and provincial government policies that are deliberately squelching growth in certain sectors, such as metallurgical coal and lumber – B.C.’s two most valuable exports – will mean lost opportunities for Canadian companies, analysts say. …Lumber prices dropped to US$360 per thousand board feet in December. The break-even price for most sawmills in B.C. is US$450 to US$500, said Russ Taylor. …“There are going to be a few more [permanent] curtailments because of all this endless government policy. Primarily it’s the old-growth deferrals, all the caribou habitat protection that they have to still implement, they have all these tenure transfers … and then they’re introducing core landscape planning. Now there’s a commitment to preserve 30 per cent of B.C. forests by 2030.”

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VIDEO – Potentially severe economic impacts could result from Canfor shutdown

By Caden Fanshaw
CKPG TV Prince George
January 13, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Joel McKay

PRINCE GEORGE – Operations at the Canfor’s PG Pulp Mill coming to a close at the end of March could hit the economy in a big way say commerce and industry experts. …Todd Corrigall, CEO at the Prince George Chamber of Commerce said when the pulp line does shut the impacts will stretch well beyond those affected and into small and medium size businesses in the city. …Natural resource expert Joel McKay said he believes Northern BC as a whole needs to come together to find a solution in the transition away from forestry. See video here

 

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Mayor Yu weighs in on Prince George Pulp and Paper mill closure

By Ted Clarke
The Prince George Citizen
January 12, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

“The city is not going to take this lying down,” Prince George Mayor Simon Yu said in reaction to Canfor’s plans to permanently close the pulp division of Prince George Pulp and Paper. “I will be talking to potential investors to see if there are economic opportunities we can seize upon immediately,” he said. “If we do not have a program for these 300 families they will move out of town and this will be devastating to the local economy and beyond.” …Yu said there could be opportunities to work mining or transportation sectors. …Bailey, Ralston and Premier David Eby will be in the city next week for the three-day reources forum. Some senior employees will be offered early retirement packages to help absorb the job losses. But with so many other businesses connected to the pulp mill supply chain there will be an obvious ripple effect.

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PRT Expands Executive Leadership Team with Two New Hires

PRT Growing Services Ltd.
January 12, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Collin Phillip and Marlene Higgins

Victoria, BC – PRT Growing Services Ltd., North America’s premier producer of container-grown forest seedlings, announced today two strategic additions to its executive leadership team, with Collin Phillip joining the company as Chief Commercial Officer and Marlene Higgins as Chief People Officer. Both hires bring extensive leadership experience and will help position PRT for its next phase of growth. “At PRT, we believe people make all the difference, so we are pleased to welcome Collin and Marlene to the team,” said Randy Fournier, CEO, PRT. “They each bring diverse experiences to their roles, and have a shared vision of expanding our critical natural resources, which drives PRT’s future success.” Phillip previously held positions at Corteva Agriscience and The Monsanto Company, operating in a variety of sales and supply chain management roles. …Higgins brings a wealth of experience to PRT, most recently serving as Senior Vice President, Human Resources for Structurlam. 

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BC Labour Relations Board sides with Canfor over payouts for Mackenzie sawmill workers

By Mark Nielsen
The Prince George Citizen
January 12, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

A Labour Relations Board panel member has set aside an arbitrator’s decision that would have entitled workers to “group termination pay” following closure of Canfor’s Mackenzie sawmill. On June 10, 2019, Canfor issued a six-week “curtailment” and one week later, on June 17, 2019, laid off almost all of its 187 unionized employees. Then, on July 18, 2019 – 10 days before the mill was scheduled to re-open – the company announced that the curtailment would be extended indefinitely. The Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada filed a grievance which contended… an employer must pay out group termination pay whenever it terminates 50 or more employees at a single location within any two-month period. In a decision issued May 10, 2021, arbitrator, Nicholas Glass, agreed with the union. But the panel member, LRB vice chair Stephanie Drake, found in favour of Canfor. …Drake found there were “exceptional and compelling reasons” for granting an extension and hearing the appeal.”

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Provincial crisis response team coming to Prince George as 300 pulp mill jobs set to be lost

By Andrew Kurjata
CBC News
January 12, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

B.C. Premier David Eby says he is deploying a crisis response team to Prince George to support workers losing their jobs at a Canfor pulp mill. …”It’s an incredibly stressful time for them and for the whole community in Prince George,” Eby said, adding that the transition team will help workers losing their jobs with access to benefits the government has established, including training, transition to retirement or other supports. Chuck LeBlanc, a union representative for those employed at the mill, says workers were “all in shock” at the news but said it had long been expected that a pulp mill in the Interior would shut down as raw fibre available to supply it declined. …Joel McKay, CEO of the economic development organization Northern Development Initiative Trust, said he would expect up to 900 additional jobs to be lost as a result of the closure, for a total of 1,200.

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PG Pulp union president blames B.C.’s forestry policies for mill closure

By Ted Clarke
The Prince George Citizen
January 12, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Chuck LeBlanc

The president of the local representing unionized workers losing their jobs as the result of Canfor’s decision this week to close its Prince George Pulp division blames the move on “failed forestry policy.” …“Starting with the Liberals when they changed the forests code to recently the old-growth deferrals to recently the caribou habitat stuff… has definitely put pressure on them,” Chuck LeBlanc, Local 9 president of the union said. …“On top of that, we have five million cubic metres of raw log exports shipped overseas. That’s eight to 10 sawmills and it affects the pulp mills after that and it’s happening year after year. We need to change what we’re presently doing, otherwise we’re going to lose a lot more jobs in this area.” …City councillor Brian Skakun…“In my opinion, Canfor has not reinvested like they could have and have invested heavily in U.S. operations.”

Additional coverage in MyPGNow, by Brendan Pawliw: “It’s a dark day for Prince George,”: Union President, city councillor weigh in on Canfor closure

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Aspen Planers in Merritt could reopen soon: Mayor Goetz

By Michael Reeve
CFJC Today Kamloops
January 12, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

MERRITT, B.C. — In December, Aspen Planers announced a three-week shutdown of its two mills in Merritt, citing a lack of steady log supply. Those three weeks have come and passed with the mills remaining silent. “This is the last actual operating sawmill in this community. We need to protect it,” Merritt Mayor Mike Goetz said. The city of Merritt once had five mills. After the closure of Tolko in 2016, Aspen Planers is the last one standing. …“When we lose a tax base, a lot of our things in the community are threatened. Do we change hours on the pool? Do we change hours at the civic centre? Because … when we lose a corporate taxpayer, it’s hard on the community,” stated Goetz about the importance of Aspen to the community. Aspen Planers is a B.C.-only company, and Goetz believes it’s time for the government to support local.

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BC Liberals slam government for not coming up with solutions for forest industry

The Indo-Canadian Voice
January 12, 2023
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Mike Bernier

BC Liberal Critic for Forests Mike Bernier on Thursday said that the news about Canfor’s Pulp and Paper Mill shut down is devastating. Bernier said in a statement: “The situation in our forestry-dependent communities is dire, and this second-term NDP government has failed to come to the table with solutions. No solutions for the industry as a whole, and no solutions for workers and their families. [Premier] David Eby has admitted that the industry is facing unprecedented amounts of stress and yet one of his first orders of business was to disband the Cabinet Working Group on Forestry. …This requires a concerted focus and commitment from government with tangible supports made available on the ground immediately for the families impacted and a plan forward for forest sector workers and forestry-dependent communities that addresses a range of NDP policies that have unnecessarily exacerbated strains on the industry.

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

New Updated Export Training Program from BC Wood kicks off January 24! Open to everyone.

BC Wood Specialties Group
January 17, 2023
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

BC Wood has upgraded their Export Training Program to offer more advanced exporting best practice courses that can be taken individually or as a complete program that leads to a Certificate of Completion. Knowing the ins and outs of exporting is important for all members of your team. The BC Wood program is a series of affordable and flexible virtual courses that provide critical information on exporting and selling into international markets. Each 2-hour course is offered three-times per year and can be taken individually, or as a complete program to earn a Certificate of Completion. Pre-registered participants can also access session recordings. The program focuses on preparing wood product companies for selling into international markets by reviewing best practices around exporting including, researching new markets, selling into international and through distributors, managing international logistics, dealing with the complexities of international finance and learning how to price your products in different markets. 

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New Revised Export Training Program from BC Wood kicks off January 24th

BC Wood Specialties Group
January 13, 2023
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

BC Wood has upgraded their Export Training Program to offer more advanced exporting best practice courses that can be taken individually or as a complete program that leads to a Certificate of Completion. The BC Wood Export Training Program focuses on preparing wood product companies for selling into international markets by reviewing best practices around exporting, researching new markets, selling into international and through distributors, managing international logistics and dealing with the complexities of international finance. Courses are focused on exporting best practices regardless of what target market has been chosen by the company.  Knowing the ins and outs of exporting is important for all members and departments of your team. The BC Wood Export Training Program is a series of affordable and flexible virtual courses that provide critical information on exporting and selling into international markets. 

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Forestry

Canada’s Natalie Peace and Wendy Crosina featured in separate interviews with Alberta Forest Products Association

Weyerhaeuser Company
January 17, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

This past September, the Alberta Forest Products Association held its annual meeting in Jasper, Alberta. While there, Aspen Dudzic, AFPA’s director of communications, sat down to record podcast episodes with our own Natalie Peace, plant manager at our Edson OSB plant, and Wendy Crosina, director of forest sustainability for Canada. Natalie shared her perspective on inclusion and the importance of diversity in the workplace, and Wendy talked about her career journey (including her recent Women in Forestry award from the Forest Products Association of Canada), wildlife management and how forestry can mitigate wildfire risk.​​​​​​​

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Canfor’s Prince George lands should be seized by the Lheidli T’enneh

By Nathan Giede
The Prince George Citizen
January 17, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Nathan Giede

Not even a head-cold nightmare could stop me from entering the fray after it was announced that Canfor was to close PG pulp. This is a betrayal of our entire community that has faithfully served the demands of lumber barons for decades. However it is not unexpected. …In case it wasn’t abundantly clear to you by now, neither Victoria nor the leaders of the Canfor (as well as a host of other flagship companies) care one wit about us. …What is to be done? Bluntly put, we seize the means of production by the backdoor, with the Lheidli T’enneh’s “unceeded territory” rhetoric as our unchallengeable wedge. PG Pulp’s imminent closure offers an opportunity for us to demonstrate moving forward as a community by bringing ownership of our resources and industries back to the local level via First Nations. 

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Injunctions justify RCMP spending near $50M on resource standoffs, B.C. Mountie says

By Brett Forester
CBC News
January 13, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The leader of an RCMP unit tasked with policing resistance to resource extraction in British Columbia says court-ordered injunctions justify his squad spending nearly $50 million on operations over its five-year existence. “We don’t have a choice,” said Chief Supt. John Brewer, commander of the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG). “There is a clause in there that says we must enforce that injunction. We try to do it with the least amount of direct contact, but sometimes, when they’re blocking roads, impeding under the injunction, we have to act.” But one legal scholar who writes extensively on injunctions suggests the issue is more nuanced than that. While it’s true injunctions include enforcement clauses, Irina Ceric said they contain baked-in, boilerplate caveats providing police broad discretion on how and when to act. …CBC revealed the C-IRG spent $49.9 million enforcing court orders for pipelines… and old-growth logging between 2017 and 2022.

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College of New Caledonia Research Forest Legacy Fund seeking applicants

CKPG News Prince George
January 16, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

PRINCE GEORGE — The College of New Caledonia Research Forest Legacy Fund is seeking applicants for 2023. The successful applicant can receive up to $50,000 to continue their work sustaining and revitalizing local natural resources. The fund is open to individuals, business, community groups, First Nations communities, government agency, secondary schools and post-secondary schools. Launched in 2019, the fund is made available through the harvest and sale of timber affected by spruce beetles within the research forest north of Prince George. Since 2019, the fund has provided $190,000 to projects in northern B.C. Last year two legacy fund grants were awarded – to the Fraser Headwaters Alliance for their work upgrading the historic Goat River Trail and to the Nazko First Nation’s Landscape Recovery program for their work reclaiming native plants and restoring habitats.

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On The Brink with Jim Girvan and Rob Schuetz

By John Brink
You Tube
December 7, 2022
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Rob Schuetz is the President of Industrial Forestry Service (IFS), which is one of the largest natural resource consulting firms operating in British Columbia for the forestry, bioenergy, oil & gas, and mining sectors. Rob is past-president of the Society of Consulting Foresters of British Columbia. He specializes in the analysis of fibre supplies throughout BC and Alberta and has spent over 25 years consulting to the natural resource industries. …Jim Girvan is a Registered Professional Forester (RPF) who has dedicated over four decades of his life to the British Columbia forest industry. Jim’s name is synonymous across North America in respect to fibre supply forecasting and the varied lobby efforts on the part of independent timber harvesting contractors, consultants, forest licensees, and investors.

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The Science Supporting a 30% Conservation Target

By Alice Palmer
Sustainable Forests, Resilient Industry
January 12, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

At the UN Biodiversity Conference nearly 200 countries agreed to adopt the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). Among the 26 targets set out in the draft document is the much-publicised “30 by 30” commitment: to protect 30% of Earth’s land and marine surfaces by the year 2030. UN figures  indicate that only 17% of land and inland water ecosystems and only 8% of coastal ecosystems and ocean are currently protected …As scary as a 30% protected area target may be to the forest industry … we can’t ignore the issue. The papers I discussed in this essay don’t represent fringe beliefs; indeed, they have been published in mainstream journals, including Science and Nature. Moreover, the conservation biology community has been actively, and successfully, working to turn its ideals into political reality. What we can do is engage – with conservation biologists, policy makers, and all of the many other stakeholders in global forest management. If we don’t, we may find that many land use decisions are made without us.

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Invasive spongy moths target of B.C. spray program on Vancouver Island this spring

Canadian Press in the Coast Reporter
January 13, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

VICTORIA — The B.C. government is planning an insecticide spraying program this spring to target invasive spongy moths, formerly known as gypsy moths.   The Ministry of Forests says the spraying is planned for the Greater Victoria area and Vancouver Island communities of Courtenay, Campbell River and Port Alberni.  The ministry says in a statement the spraying is aimed at minimizing the risks spongy moths pose to forests, farms, orchards and urban trees and to prevent the moths from becoming permanently established.   It says spongy moth caterpillars defoliate trees and if they become established, many tree species including Garry oak, arbutus, fruit, nut and ornamental varieties will be affected.  The ministry says it will spray the biological insecticide known as Foray 48B, which is used in organic farming and has been approved for use in Canada since 1961 after repeated scientific studies concluded the treatment poses no threats to people or animals.

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‘Death by a thousand clearcuts’: Canada’s deep-snow caribou are vanishing

By Sarah Cox
The Narwhal
January 14, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

…Over the past 15 years, a calamity has befallen B.C.’s deep-snow caribou — a caribou ecotype found nowhere else in the world. In 2005, B.C. had 18 deep-snow caribou herds. Today, only ten remain. All are on the cusp of local extinction. Nine deep-snow caribou herds once lived to the south of the Columbia North herd. Eight are gone. Only about two dozen animals remain in the ninth herd, an amalgamation of two herds. Bucking the dispiriting trend, and following costly interventions such as shooting wolves, in 2022 the Columbia North population grew by almost two dozen, to 209 animals. …Perhaps no other animal highlights Canada’s role in the planet’s unfolding sixth mass extinction event as much as caribou, the species engraved on the Canadian quarter. Worldwide, more than one million species face extinction, according to a 2019 United Nations report. In Canada, one in five species are at some risk of disappearing. 

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Nanaimo man awaits punishment for causing pair of highway blockades

By Ian Holmes
Nanaimo News Now
January 12, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Derek Menard

NANAIMO — A brief jail sentence is possible for a man at the centre of a pair blockades on the Trans Canada Highway on Vancouver Island last spring. Sentencing arguments for Derek Hugh Menard took place Wednesday, Jan 11 after he pleaded guilty to mischief and intimidation by obstructing a highway last year in Nanaimo and Langford. The 33-year-old scientist and longtime political activist joined several others in briefly blocking Trans Canada Hwy. traffic on April 8. 2022 in Chase River, while he helped orchestrate a lengthy disruption several days later north of Victoria. “Which of course is ironic because this is a protest about climate change and it leads the Crown to submit it’s a very misguided form of protest,” Crown Counsel’s Joel Gold said in reference to idling vehicles releasing carbon into the atmosphere during the incidents. He argued for a two week jail tenure for Menard followed by probation.

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More than 20 years ago, a tiny insect changed B.C.’s forestry future. The fallout is still happening

By Andrew Kurjata
CBC News
January 13, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

No one is surprised by the news of Canfor shutting down one of its pulp mills in Prince George. …The combination of a warming climate and forest practices that artificially inflated the amount of mature pine available led to an explosion in the mountain pine beetle’s population in northern and central B.C. By 2012, more than 18 million hectares of B.C. forest were infested. The government increased the annual allowable cut of forests, so trees could be harvested before they were no longer viable for the market. …Forest fires, the softwood lumber trade dispute with the U.S. and a worldwide recession are also having an effect, as are government policies aimed at protecting habitat for species like endangered mountain caribou. John Innes with the forestry department at UBC says… forestry is a multi-billion dollar industry that “supports schools, supports First Nations, supports hospitals and other services provided by the government” and that money won’t easily be replaced.

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Thieves snag $15K of wood from B.C. helicopter logging site

By Kemone Moodley
The Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News
January 12, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

A Fraser Valley-based community forestry group says it’s been hit not once, but twice by thieves stealing large, expensive logs from one of their remote helicopter sites. Cascade Lower Canyon Community Forest discovered the first theft during the Christmas break when they noticed that two of their logs — worth $500 per metre — were missing from their helicopter logging site in the Silver Skagit area. General manager Matt Wealick said he was dismayed to see that six more logs …were taken Monday evening (Jan. 9), from their landing site, located halfway from the Flood Hope Road exit. …“This is very high value [logs] because we’re flying it by helicopter. So, it’s very valuable,” says Wealick, “they’re targeting cedar and they took certain pieces.” …“The Ministry of Forestry, who are supposed to be our RCMP, haven’t even answered my call from the first time,” says Wealick. “That’s the most disappointing thing in all of this.”

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‘Inept, shady, unaccountable’ leadership led to Canfor Pulp layoffs

By James Steidle, Stop the Spray Founder
The Prince George Citizen
January 12, 2023
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

PRINCE GEORGE — With 300 fresh job losses in town, it’s time to ask who is running the forests. The megacorps are in the driving seat, of course, but where’s the political leadership? …There has been so many different forest ministers these past few years, I’m not sure who we can blame for the poor state of our forests. …No matter how bad the megacorps mismanage our forests they pretend to own… people from the Lower Mainland do not care. …It is delusional to think our ever-changing cast of forest ministers and our disinterested big-city electorate and media are providing adequate oversight of our forests. This leaves the real political power in the offices of appointed Victoria Ministry officials, and the Office of the Chief Forester in particular. And they run the show in concert with the megacorps, which they are meant to regulate, with near complete impunity.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Low-carbon tour provides behind-the-scenes look at industry

By Caden Fanshaw
CKPG Today
January 17, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

The ‘Low-Carbon Tour’ provided delegates with a lengthy look at the operations at Lakeland Mills and how the facility feeds the PG’s Downtown Renewable Energy System. After the tour at Lakeland Mills delegates visited the grounds of Winton Homes and Cottages to see a demonstration building that meets the 2032 BC Energy Step Code requirements for all new buildings. “As part of producing that lumber, we generate biofuel, so it’ll be sawdust, it’ll be hard fuel, it’ll be some chips, and all of those products have an end use for us.” said Dave Herzig, General Manager of Lumber Operations at Sinclar Forest Products. “Certainly at this site we’ll take our sawdust and our hard fuel and that allows us to generate heat for our plant and for the Downtown Renewable Energy System.”

Additional coverage from City of Prince George – Low-carbon leadership in Prince George tour overview and itinerary.

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Dissent for Northwest Territories’ carbon pricing plan heard at public meeting

By Liny Lamberink
CBC News
January 18, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

Caroline Wawzonek

There was a lot of frustration, a little bit of hope, and a pitch for renewable diesel heard at a public meeting in Yellowknife this week about upcoming changes to the N.W.T.’s carbon taxes. The federal government is increasing the price on carbon pollution by a bigger increment every year, starting in April. It’s also banning rebates that directly offset the impact of carbon taxes — which is what the territory currently uses to ease the burden of the carbon tax on residents. Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek defended Bill 60, which is her response to the federal government’s changes, during the hearing at the legislative assembly on Monday. The bill would adopt the new federal rules but would also increase the cost of living payment to N.W.T. residents.

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B.C. government gives millions to remote communities to switch from diesel to renewable energy

By David Carrigg
Vancouver Sun
January 16, 2023
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

Josie Osborne

The provincial government is giving $7.1 million to 12 remote First Nations to help them convert from diesel to renewable energy to power their communities. That money will come from the $29 million community energy diesel reduction program set up to spend that amount over three years to help B.C.’s 44 remote communities develop alternative-energy projects and advance energy efficiency. The majority of those communities are First Nations. She said the 12 communities getting the first round of funding includes the Lhoozk’uz Dene Nation near Quesnel — which will receive $350,000 to build a biomass-powered system for heat and power — and the Haida Nation, which that will receive $2 million to develop and build a two-megawatt solar farm on Haida Gwaii’s Northern grid.

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