Canada’s government has moved quickly to protect and strengthen the sectors most affected by U.S. tariffs – introducing new measures to help workers gain new skills, support businesses as they modernise and diversify, and boost domestic demand for Canadian goods. Building on previously announced measures to help transform the Canadian steel and softwood lumber industries, the following new initiatives were announced:
- Further limit foreign steel imports
- Make it easier to build with Canadian steel and Canadian lumber
- Canada will work with railway companies to cut freight rates for transporting Canadian steel and lumber interprovincially by 50%.
- To maximise the use of Canadian softwood lumber in housing, Build Canada Homes will prioritise shovel-ready, multi-year projects.
- Canada will implement our Buy Canadian Policy later this year, which requires that all contracts worth over $25 million prioritise Canadian materials – including steel and lumber.
- Increase protections for Canadian steel and lumber workers and businesses
- Canada will earmark more than $100 million to provide support in all sectors with an active Work-Sharing agreement.
- Canada will provide an additional $500 million to the BDC Softwood Lumber Guarantee Program.
- For softwood lumber firms facing liquidity pressures, Canada will earmark $500 million under the Large Enterprise Tariff Loan facility.
- Canada will launch a Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force.
The United Steelworkers union (USW) welcomes the federal government’s new measures to support Canada’s steel and softwood lumber sectors, calling them a meaningful step forward in the face of US tariffs and global market instability. The package includes tighter import controls, a 25% surtax on steel derivatives, strengthened border enforcement, expanded liquidity supports for softwood producers, a top-up to the Work-Sharing program, lower interprovincial freight costs, and new domestic-content requirements for federal projects. …Marty Warren, USW National Director… underscored that the Work-Sharing top-up will help workers stay on the job during temporary downturns and also pointed to the importance of strengthening procurement rules. On softwood lumber, the union welcomes the government’s efforts… “But let’s be honest, forestry towns cannot rebuild on temporary fixes. A long-term resolution to the softwood lumber dispute with the United States is essential. Without it, workers and communities remain vulnerable to decisions they cannot control.”
Help is on the way for Canadian steel producers and those in softwood lumber affected by the ongoing trade dispute with the United States. Multiple senior government sources confirmed that Prime Minister Mark Carney will announce measures on Wednesday to protect the steel industry, which has been hit with 50 per cent tariffs by the Trump administration. The measures include cutting limits to the amount of steel that can be imported into the country from nations that do not have a free trade agreement with Canada. …The Carney government will also increase the total money available to struggling softwood lumber companies to $1.2 billion. It’s a $500-million increase from the previously announced Softwood Lumber Development Program, which gives companies access to government-backed loans. …Trade talks between the two countries have been put on pause for the last month.
President Donald Trump has yet to follow through on his threat to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian imports, four weeks after he halted “all trade negotiations” over an anti-tariff ad the province of Ontario ran. Trump’s announcement had Canadian exporters preparing for a worst-case scenario: a sweeping levy layered on top of existing double-digit duties. …The White House did not say whether it still plans to impose the tariff when asked for comment. But a separate US official suggested the Trump administration had opted to hold off on additional duties — which would have sent tariffs on Canadian goods to 45% — and instead continue to dangle the threat as the two sides gear up for future talks. “The Canadians know what’s on the table,” said the official. Volpe said a personal intervention by Carney in Asia last month may have helped matters, too.
Ottawa threw the beleaguered softwood lumber industry a bone. …The new measures include $500 million in new loan guarantees for softwood lumber companies. “Loans are only good if i can sell my prioduct and pay for those loans,” said Brian Menzies, at the Independent Wood Processors Association of BC. “At 45%, I can t sell my product into the United States.” Other steps announced include cutting freight rates. …The measures are window dressing – say some – when compared to the impact of the steel industry supports. “I’m afraid we’ve come to the point that ‘Sophies choice’ is happening and softwood lumber is the child who’s going to be left behind,” said Menzies. It’s a concern shared at Leslie Forest Products, in Delta where James Sanghera said the measures won’t make a difference. “Most of the wood we’re sending down to the States is going on truck.”
The looming closure of a lumber mill in central BC is highlighting the forestry industry’s challenges in accessing an economically viable timber supply — with one academic urging an “emergency response” to deal with it. West Fraser Timber announced it would shut its mill in 100 Mile House by the end of the year. BC’s forestry industry has taken major hits over the last few years, as escalating US duties on softwood lumber imports have piled atop challenges like a major beetle infestation and wildfires, leading to thousands of jobs lost. …UBC professor Gary Bull explained that to have an “economically viable fibre supply,” it needs to make sense financially for a company to transport logs from a forest to its mill. And the viability is complicated by the fluctuating price of lumber. …Bull estimated that insect outbreaks and wildfires have contributed to a 50 to 60 per cent reduction in available fibre near 100 Mile House.
Pierre Poilievre says he’d succeed where Prime Minister Mark Carney has failed, and that New Brunswick’s softwood lumber sector would quickly get a “tariff-free” deal with the US if he was in charge. …Ottawa responded by releasing a financial aid package for the industry that includes up to $700 million in federal loans, “$500 million to supercharge product and market diversification. …Poilievre said that “one of my top priorities as prime minister will be to go down to Washington, get a deal on lumber, make the pitch that they will get more affordable homes if we can get tariff-free access to their market.” …MP Dominic LeBlanc sent a statement…. “In the coming weeks, we will take further urgent action, building on the significant support for the sector announced on August 5, 2025. In addition, Build Canada Homes, a new federal agency that will build affordable housing at scale, will prioritize the use of Canadian-made materials. [Access may require a Telegraph-Journal subscription]
KINCHELOE, Michigan — A unique manufacturing facility opened in September along a CN line in Kincheloe, Michigan. Located in the Chippewa County Industrial Park in Michigan’s upper peninsula, the $7.3 million, 20,000-square foot facility serves as a transportation and logistics hub for wood and lumber dealer Maple Transport. The facility features a rail spur and is situated near Interstate 75. The new manufacturing hub will support Michigan’s $20 billion forest products industry and serve other new or expanding businesses, Maple Transport officials say. Project funding included $5.8 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, $1.25 million in matching dollars from the Michigan Economic Development Corp., and contributions from the Chippewa County Economic Development Corp. and a Strategic Site Readiness Program grant. Construction began in spring 2024 on the manufacturing facility, which Maple Transport will use to ship wood products, CN officials said in an email. The facility will be served by both CN and trucks.
The return of cold and snow at the close of the year typically signal the end of the wildfire season. …Zombie fires, sometimes betrayed by a plume of steam emerging from the bubbling ground in the frozen forest, were once a rare occurrence in the boreal regions that stretch across the far north through Siberia, Canada and Alaska. But in a rapidly heating world, they are becoming increasingly common. The overwintering burns are small – and often hard to detect – but they are transforming fires into multi-year events. …“It is a massive problem,” says Lori Daniels, a professor at the University of BC. Current estimates show that only about 15% of the northern hemisphere is underlain by permafrost, yet these frozen soils contain roughly twice as much carbon than is now in the atmosphere. By burning slowly and at a lower temperature, they release vastly more particulate pollution and greenhouse gas emissions than flaming fires.
It was no surprise that everyone on the timber panel at this month’s Alaska Resource Development Council conference had the same message: The industry needs a larger supply of trees to cut. And a steady, bankable supply, said Joe Young, of Tok, who started Young’s Timber in Alaska’s Interior more than 30 years ago. …The Nov. 13 industry panel at the annual conference held in Anchorage also talked about demand for their product and the challenges in meeting that demand. Juneau attorney Jim Clark, said the Trump administration’s move to rescind the Roadless Rule, which has been around since 2001, could help open areas of the Tongass National Forest to logging. …The lack of timber sales, financial pressures and opposition from conservation groups have knocked down Alaska timber industry jobs from almost 4,000 in 1990 to about 700 in 2015 and just 360 in 2024, according to Alaska Department of Labor statistics.
The European Parliament has approved measures to simplify the EU Deforestation Regulation adopted in 2023, which aims to ensure that products sold in the EU are not sourced from deforested land, according to the European Parliament. The new position grants companies an additional year to comply with the regulation. Large operators and traders must apply the obligations from 30 December 2026, and micro and small enterprises from 30 June 2027. The extension is designed to support a smooth transition and allow upgrades to the IT system used for electronic due diligence statements. Parliament agreed that the responsibility for submitting due diligence statements should rest with businesses that first place products on the EU market, not with later traders. Micro and small primary operators will now be required to file only a single simplified declaration instead of full due diligence reports.
Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that underscores the need for urgent action to save the world’s great natural climate stabilisers. The alarming shift, which has happened since 2010, means all of the planet’s three main rainforest regions – the South American Amazon, south-east Asia and Africa – are now part of the problem. Human activity is the primary cause of the problem. Farmers are clearing more land for food production. Infrastructure projects and mining are exacerbating the loss of vegetation and global heating – caused by the burning of gas, oil and coal – thereby degrading the resilience of ecosystems. …The worst affected were the tropical moist broadleaf forests in Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar and parts of west Africa. The study, 
BRUSSELS — The European Commission has unveiled a new plan to end the dominance of planet-heating fossil fuels in Europe’s economy — and replace them with trees. The 
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While the summit launched new financial instruments and strengthened the recognition of Indigenous rights, the final binding text is conspicuously silent on the one commitment that matters most right now: a concrete, mandatory roadmap to halt deforestation. …The Brazilian Presidency pushed hard for two ambitious roadmaps: one to phase out fossil fuels and one to halt deforestation. The strategy was to link them, acknowledging the obvious: we cannot save the Amazon if the world keeps warming. …The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process proved unable to digest the complexity of the forest–climate nexus. We have effectively moved from a consensus-based approach to a plurilateral one, where progress rests on voluntary clubs of nations rather than global law. …If the political outcome disappointed, the financial and rights-based elements provide a measure of hope: The Tropical Forests Forever Faculty—a mechanism that pays nations for standing forests as an asset class, not just for avoided deforestation.
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