Zoltan van Heyningen
WASHINGTON — Strong US trade law enforcement measures coupled with the appropriate application of Section 232 tariff measures have resulted in reducing Canada’s softwood lumber market share in the US from 32% in 2016 to an average of 18.6% over the most recent quarter of available data. This significant reduction in Canadian market share comes as a direct result of the US Lumber Coalition filing trade cases and President Trump’s imposition of Section 232 tariff measures. …”The latest Canadian market share data demonstrates that Canadian imports can and should be replaced by US production. More US lumber produced by US workers to provide a more stable domestic supply of lumber for US housing is a win for American forestry workers and communities,” stated Zoltan van Heyningen, Executive Director. …”The most recent USMCA panel decisions likewise have concluded that Canada engaged in dumping, is subsidizing its industry, and that lumber imports are harming US producers”.
In a world of colourful economic pie charts and slick bar graphs, the image of a three-sided circle is both awkward and uncomfortable. Yet this image may depict the emerging fate of the Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement. For Canada, the wild ride through Trumpian trade policy has now entered a decisive phase. …Some rules of the road ahead are beginning to take shape. First there is a recognition and begrudging acceptance that there will be some tariffs where CUSMA had none. …Secondly, despite warm commitments to the trilateral CUSMA relationship, Canada and Mexico are engaged in separate bilateral discussions with the US. …Enter the three-sided circle. Here the current comprehensive trilateral agreement would evolve into three bilateral trade agreements bound by a core centre that holds common rules and undertakings. …In triaging the trade-wounded, no sector deserves a bigger fix than Canada’s softwood lumber industry. Its market access to the US has been battered by 40 years of aggressive protectionism. 
Trade watchers say they are shocked at the latest tactic being used by the US to shore up its tariff wall against Canada after a legal setback last month. US Trade Representative (USTR) launched investigations into 60 economies under Section 301(b) of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974 to determine whether they have failed to impose or enforce bans on imports produced with forced labour. But critics in the Washington beltway say the 301 probes are basically a “show trial” and that the verdict is sure to go against trading partners such as Canada. Canada is being grouped together with China and dozens of other countries for these investigations. The probes will examine whether Ottawa’s forced-labour rules and framework… are sufficient for screening goods produced by child or forced labour. …“This has nothing to do with forced labour,” said Inu Manak, at the Council on Foreign Relations. …He thinks the administration is constructing a pretext to defend the tariffs it’s already planning.
The final step in a $120-million investment into BC’s forestry sector by a West Kelowna family-owned forestry company has concluded, following the Minister of Forests’ official approval of a tenure transfer from Weyerhaeuser to Gorman Group. “Gorman Group is investing in the future of forestry, investing in a new chapter for Princeton, and investing in the transformation of the community into a real forestry hub,” said Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests. …“By approving this tenure transfer, we are supporting a company that believes in value-added manufacturing, using every fibre to its fullest potential and keeping jobs here at home.” …The transferred tenures total approximately 682,000 cubic metres. …“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,” said Nick Arkle, CEO, Gorman Group. 
Princeton’s mill celebrated not just new owners but a new name as well with the handover of forestry tenures from Weyerhaeuser to West Kelowna-based Gorman Bros on March 19. …The transfer of the timber tenures has happened quickly since being announced in September 2025, as far as tenure transfers go and especially with the new legislative requirements to consider public interest. Forests Minister Ravi Parmar said “Here you have a company that is continuing to make investments in BC in a time where things are tough right now in forestry. …That speaks well to the future of forestry and gives me the hope and optimism.” …The Ministry of Forests received nearly 300 letters in support of the Gorman tenure transfer from individuals, businesses, First Nations, contractors, community forests and unions during the public input period. “This is a good step forward for a sustainable forestry sector,” Princeton Mayor Spencer Coyne said.
The Supreme Court of Canada is being asked to consider a clash between Aboriginal title and private land in a New Brunswick case that would have significant national implications. Last December, the New Brunswick Court of Appeal ruled that the Wolastoqey Nation could not seek a declaration of Aboriginal title over private property as part of its claim against the province. The decision was a sharp contrast to a lower-court ruling in BC last summer. After a trial that stretched five years, the BC Supreme Court declared that the Cowichan Tribes had Aboriginal title to about 800 acres in the Vancouver suburbs. In the Wolastoqey case, Justice Ernest Drapeau wrote that he was “unable to see” how Aboriginal title could co-exist with private land. He stated that a declaration of Aboriginal title over such land “would sound the death knell of reconciliation.” …The Wolastoqey are Tcalling on the top court to enter the fray to settle the legal uncertainty. [to access the full story a subscription is required]
Lumber futures fell below $600 per thousand board feet as a slowdown in the North American housing market and rising financing costs outweighed persistent supply constraints. This downward pressure was driven by a 5.4% decline in building permits and a sharp 14.2% collapse in single-family housing starts, which signaled a cooling of construction activity as the spring season began. Additionally, 30-year fixed mortgage rates climbed to 6.22% following the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates steady, the market was further pressured by a sharp drop in crude oil prices that reduced the energy-heavy transport and production overheads. These factors effectively neutralized the marginal one-point gain in the NAHB Housing Market Index to 38, leaving 37% of builders reliant on deep price cuts to move a 2.4% increase in unsold inventory. Structural supply issues like the 45% combined duties on Canadian softwood and ongoing sawmill closures continue to provide a floor.
VANCOUVER, BC — Conifex Timber reported results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2025. EBITDA* from continuing operations was negative $12.6 million for the quarter and negative $27.5 million for the year, compared to EBITDA of negative $2.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2024 and negative $13.6 million for the year. Net loss was $35.7 million or negative $0.87 per share for the year versus net loss in the preceding year of $29.8 million. …Our lumber production was 147.9 million board feet in 2025 reflecting an annualized operating rate of 62%. Lumber production in 2025 benefited from higher operating rates in the first half of the year but was impacted by curtailments and modified operating configurations in the second half of 2025 in response to lower lumber prices and higher duty deposit rates and tariff impositions. Lumber production in 2024 was 134.8 million board feet, reflecting an annualized operating rate of 56%.
Canada’s insurance industry is urging Ottawa to take direct control of wildfire management, warning that rising disaster costs and what critics describe as a reactive federal response demand a centralized national agency. Blacklock’s Reporter says in submissions to the House of Commons environment committee, the Insurance Bureau of Canada called on Parliament to create a federal emergency management body similar to the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, arguing current systems are no longer adequate. “The trend is clear,” the Bureau wrote. “Canada has already entered an era of record-breaking natural disasters with no signs of slowing.” The proposal would mark a major shift from the current model, where provinces and territories lead wildfire response efforts through mutual aid agreements coordinated by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre, established in 1982.
Several log bundles ended up on beaches in the Parksville and Nanoose Bay area after rough weather caused a log boom to break open at Mosaic Forest Management’s Northwest Bay waterfront facility last weekend. … “Shifting high winds pushed the logs into shallow water before crews could safely reach them,” Mosaic told the PQB News. “We responded as soon as we were alerted early Sunday morning, recovering 10 of the 19 bundles.” Mosaic says salvage crews are standing by to recover the remaining nine bundles, but the current weather system has hampered access to the shallow beach areas where they came ashore.
Daria Mykhailovych, a Sooke resident, has been raising awareness across Greater Victoria about a petition calling on the provincial government to strengthen protections for British Columbia’s remaining old-growth forests in hopes of encouraging more people to support it. …Originally from Ukraine, she said landscapes like those on Vancouver Island are rare elsewhere in the world. …The petition was launched in fall 2025 by two B.C. forest ecologists, Dr. Suzanne Simard, a professor at University of British Columbia, and independent ecologist Dr. Rachel Holt. Originally, the petition was started with a goal of getting 10,000 signatures. As of March, 16, the petition has received support from about 4,070 people. …“Our concern is that we’ve been cutting these forests at an unsustainable rate,” Simard said. “We wanted to raise awareness and encourage people to question whether the path we’re on is good for the people of British Columbia and for the forests themselves.”
BC Timber Sales is bringing forward an application to establish 17 new cut blocks on Crown land east of Okanagan Falls and Penticton. The application is being brought to the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen on March 19 for support, as the proposed cut blocks are located within the boundaries of the Okanagan Falls electoral area. The 17 cut blocks total 494.7 hectares, and the proposal would also see road construction and road deactivation. The rehabilitation process for the roads would include tree replanting. The land is in an RDOS-designated resource area, and a staff report says the proposed cutblocks fall within watercourse development permit areas and “important ecosystem areas.” The advisory planning committee for Okanagan Falls gave its support to the application at its March 9 meeting, while requesting that any approval be subject to a full environmental assessment.
A national organization is seeking people with experience in Canada’s forestry sector as they put together a working group that will examine ways to improve forest recovery following wildfires. Jessica Kaknevicius is the CEO of Forests Canada. She said last year the group reached out to tree planting organizations, to ask them how they are changing their planting practices after forest fires. “We got a lot of insight in terms of this kind of gap of knowledge with how should we be planting differently?” “That’s everywhere from looking at species selection, to looking at how densely are we planting, health and safety of planters, where are we planting, all those things,” she said. “From that dialogue last year, what really came about was the need to bring together a national working group to share best practices, identify gaps, to get better trees in the ground, and really focus on survivability.”
With the April 1, 2026, deadline for the Alberta-Ottawa memorandum of understanding fast approaching, leading climate policy experts are calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to restore the strength and integrity of Canada’s industrial carbon pricing system to increase competitiveness and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The 
A European energy giant Octopus Energy Generation Ltd. will spend as much as $6 billion to build and operate a renewable energy park in Nova Scotia. Octopus plans to use biomass …from forest-based industries to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) it will sell to European customers. The processing for Nova Sustainable Fuels, as the Canadian subsidiary is known, will be done at a to-be-constructed renewable energy park in Goldboro, N.S. The site, estimated to cost between $4 billion and $6 billion, is expected to take about three years to build and have a 50-year lifespan. …With airlines seeking to decarbonize, the World Economic Forum reported in 2025 that the global demand for SAF is projected to grow exponentially, reaching 17 million tonnes annually by 2030. That represents four to five per cent of total jet fuel consumption. Parsons said the foundation of the project is based on supplying SAF to European markets.
