Mark Carney
Prime Minister Carney says any future trade deal with the US could include “some element of managed trade,” including quotas, on softwood lumber exports. Carney’s comments come after B.C. Premier David Eby said that the federal government has been speaking with the provinces about quotas to resolve the softwood lumber dispute. Carney added that resolving the conflict is a “top priority” as the US prepares to double various duties to 34.45%. Canada and the US have been without a softwood lumber agreement since 2015, and Eby has previously said that resolving the dispute could “build momentum” for a larger trade deal. US President Trump’s latest threat is to impose 35% tariffs by Aug. 1 on Canadian goods currently not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Carney says he agrees with Eby’s idea of resolving the lumber dispute as part of a larger trade deal, but notes that both issues are unfolding along different times lines.
Related coverage in: Business in Vancouver: Carney confirms possibility of lumber quotas in trade deal with US
The US and Canada… have feuded over “softwood” lumber since the 1980s. …Canada has long resisted changing its trade practices on lumber. But as the Trump administration has become more bellicose about its trade relationship with Canada, the country’s stance may be softening. On July 16, BC Premier Eby said Canadian officials are now open to a quota. …Any added fees from the US would likely further hamper an already struggling Canadian industry and benefit the US South. But the US would likely struggle to offset the lumber it gets from Canada in the short-term, driving up housing prices. …Though the US has some spare capacity to turn more timber into construction materials, a fully domestic supply chain would likely still require the construction of new sawmills and additional trained workers to operate the facilities. …Another factor for US suppliers and buyers is that US and Canadian lumber are not a perfect swap. [to access the full story a Bloomberg subscription may be required]
Canada’s premiers’ summer gathering in Muskoka will also feature a meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney, as trade talks with the US are expected to intensify. Most of what the premiers are likely to discuss stems from President Trump’s tariffs: trade negotiations, the direct impact on industries such as steel and aluminum, the increased pushes to remove interprovincial trade barriers and speed up major infrastructure and natural resource projects. …“Canada is not open to us,” he said. “They need to open their market. Unless they’re willing to open their market, they’re going to pay a tariff. Lutnick also said Trump intends to renegotiate the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement next year, when the pact is slated to undergo a joint review. Carney has said Canada is trying to get an agreement on softwood lumber exports included in the current round of negotiations with the United States.
The Canada-US softwood lumber trade relationship has dealt with ups and downs for decades. …Canadian firms will soon receive word from the US Commerce Department… with the rate expected to jump from around 14% to 34%. …“Canfor’s rate will be ~45%,” said Andrew Miller, chair of the US Lumber Coalition. …Then there’s the threat of tariffs from President Donald Trump’s ongoing national security investigation of Canadian lumber imports under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. …The US Lumber Coalition is playing for keeps. …Miller isn’t shy about the goals: “A countrywide quota with no exemptions and no carveouts, and a single-digit market share” for Canadian lumber. …The coalition is pushing for a tariff rate from the Section 232 investigation that starts at 15 to 20% and goes higher from there. That, Miller explained, will incentivize U.S. sawmill owners struggling with thin margins to hire more people and invest in upgrades, bolstering U.S. production.
Prime Minister Carney says securing a truce in the long-running Canada-US lumber dispute is a top priority as Canadian producers brace for even heftier US levies as early as September. …Mr. Carney declined to say what level of baseline tariff Ottawa would accept in a new trade and security pact with Washington. …Mr. Carney was asked whether Canada would impose tariffs on US products if the US keeps a baseline levy on Canadian goods. “We’ll see what the final agreement is, if there is an agreement,” he said. …Historically, Mr. Carney said lumber deals with the US contain “some element of managed trade” such as quotas on Canadian shipments to the US. …Mr. Pellerin, a former Canadian government softwood litigator, said he thinks it would be unwise to strike a deal before litigation related to the softwood dispute plays out. There are several challenges of US duties on softwood proceeding under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement dispute mechanism. [This story is for Globe and Mail subscribers only]
Canada is open to considering limits on softwood lumber exports to the U.S. to try to ease some trade friction between the neighboring countries, British Columbia Premier David Eby told Bloomberg News in a report published on Wednesday. “One of the asks for years out of the American coalition has been a quota — that there’s a fixed amount of lumber that gets to come from Canada,” Eby told Bloomberg News. “And I think that, for the first time, there’s some willingness to have a conversation about what that could look like.” [to access the full story, a Reuters or Bloomberg Economics subscription is required]
Days after Nova Scotia’s forestry sector was dealt a major blow, the province is promising to use more wood to heat and construct public buildings — although officials deny any connection between the two developments. Two cabinet ministers made the announcement Thursday at Ledwidge Lumber, a sawmill in Enfield, N.S. Public Works Minister Fred Tilley said every government department is being directed to look for opportunities to use wood products that are leftover after trees have been harvested and milled for lumber. The products could include mass timber, wood pellets, biomass and biofuels. Tilley said the move was driven by the province’s desire to become more self-reliant, reduce fossil fuel use and produce more locally-made construction materials. …Meanwhile, lawyers for Northern Pulp were in a British Columbia courtroom on Thursday where they received approval for a plan to extend creditor protection while preparations continue to auction off the outfit’s Nova Scotia assets.
Stop me if you have heard this one before. A company from away lands and makes loud noises about hiring hundreds of people in a job-hungry rural part of Nova Scotia. Government puts up millions of our dollars to bring in a new industry it really doesn’t understand. …Sometimes it works, other times the receivers move in or the multi-nationals move out. Then the recriminations begin. They already have in the 58-year-long saga of Northern Pulp and its predecessor companies which limps to a conclusion in Nova Scotia. This province has had a few successful commercial transplants. …But it is our high-profile failures, like this week’s announcement that Northern Pulp not only wouldn’t build a mill on the South Shore but has started selling off its assets, that seem to stick. …Enough companies have gone bust, sometimes spectacularly so, that they should serve as cautionary tales.
TERRACE BAY, Ontario — AV Terrace Bay has been convicted on two charges: Failing to control the quality of discharged effluent to ensure that acute toxicity tests resulted in no more than a 50% mortality rate for the test organisms; and Failing to comply with an industry standard by discharging Total Reduced Sulphur compounds. …AV Terrace Bay was convicted of two violations under the Environmental Protection Act, fined $525,000 plus a victim fine surcharge of $131,250, and given 12 months to pay. …Due to financial constraints and market conditions, the mill has been in a warm idle state and has not been producing product or revenue since at least January 2024. The mill generates industrial effluent that undergoes primary and secondary treatment prior to discharging to Lake Superior via Blackbird Creek. …On May 1, 2023, 100% of the Rainbow Trout died during an acute lethality test performed on a grab sample of the mill’s final effluent.
WASHINGTON – American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) President and CEO Heidi Brock today reacted to recent US-EU trade negotiations: “We appreciate President Trump and his administration’s efforts to further enhance fair and reciprocal trade with key partners like the European Union. Addressing tariff and non-tariff trade barriers is crucial to ensuring a positive trade relationship for the pulp, paper, packaging and tissue products manufacturing industry. “The EU’s deforestation free regulation (EUDR), which has been identified as a non-tariff trade barrier by the U.S. Trade Representative, risks over $3.5 billion in annual forest products exports to the EU. “We encourage President Trump and his administration to continue working towards a fair and reciprocal trade relationship with the EU that fixes this regulation while improving other aspects of trade for U.S. paper manufacturers.”
Is Brazil playing fair when it comes to trade? An investigation launched July 15 by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) aims to find the answer. The Section 301 investigation will seek to determine whether acts, policies, and practices of the Government of Brazil related to a host of trade issues — including ethanol market access and forestry practices — are “unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict U.S. commerce.” “Brazil has walked away from its willingness to provide virtually duty-free treatment for U.S. ethanol and instead now applies a substantially higher tariff on U.S. ethanol exports,” the USTR office wrote in announcing the investigation. The announcement also said Brazil appears to be failing to effectively enforce laws and regulations designed to stop illegal deforestation — which undermines the competitiveness of U.S. producers of timber and ag products.
Amid global economic uncertainties and tightening trade policies, Việt Nam’s wood industry is navigating through significant headwinds. While long considered a strong export sector, local enterprises are now re-evaluating their strategies to not only sustain growth but also reposition Vietnamese wood products on the global trade map. According to Nguyễn Liêm, chairman of the Bình Dương Furniture Association, major shifts in trade policies among importing countries have been felt since early this year. …The US remains the largest market, accounting for nearly 50% of the industry’s export value. …Recently, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) initiated anti-dumping and countervailing investigations into plywood imported from Việt Nam. …Besides the US, the European Union has also implemented new technical and legal requirements. Regulations such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) are demanding more rigorous environmental and traceability standards.
Lumber futures traded above $650 per thousand board feet, hovering near April highs driven by tightening US sawmill output and dwindling import volumes, both of which are near their lowest levels in half a decade. Domestic production in the first quarter slipped year-on-year, and imports, including softwood lumber from Canada, have contracted sharply, leaving US framing material availability at its leanest since 2019. At the same time, builders are contending with looming tariff hikes that could push duties on Canadian lumber from roughly 14.5% today toward the mid-30s, adding several thousand dollars to the cost of new homes. Although a modest pull-back in construction activity has softened recent gains, overall demand remains sufficient to absorb current supply, and without a rapid expansion in US mill capacity or alternative sourcing, these supply constraints, compounded by rising trade barriers, are likely to sustain upward pressure on lumber prices in the months ahead.
President Donald Trump’s flurry of tariff letters to more two dozen countries has triggered new threats of retaliation. Key US industries are increasingly worried they are going to be collateral damage. The European Union on Monday released a targeted list of $88 billion worth of US goods it plans to tariff if it doesn’t make more progress in trade talks with Trump. Brazil, staring down a 50% duty on its exports to the US over Trump’s frustration with their domestic politics. …While the hardening battle lines in the negotiations could be part of each sides’ effort to force more concessions, domestic business groups aren’t counting on it. Instead, they are mobilizing to try and convince both the Trump administration and foreign governments that it would be a mistake to target their industries. …On Tuesday, the president dismissed the idea that the EU may go through with their proposed retaliatory tariffs.
Vancouver Park Board staff are seeking commissioners’ approval to proceed with the next phase of a tree removal project in Stanley Park due to an extensive looper moth infestation. Work has been underway to cut down thousands of trees in Vancouver’s biggest park since the summer of 2023, due to fire and public safety risks posed by dead and dying trees. …While the tree removal plan has faced sharp criticism staff say they have a plan that will see the least number of trees removed. “This aims to balance key public safety risks resulting from the hemlock looper outbreak while leaving a moderate extent of internal forest areas to undergo natural forest stand regeneration,” the staff motion says of its preferred approach. If commissioners approve of the staff plan, planning for tree removal and mitigation work would begin later this year and conclude in the first quarter of 2027.
Warm temperatures, low river flows and declining water quality are sparking fears of another mass fish die-off in the Cowichan River this summer. The Cowichan Watershed Board said river conditions this summer “mirror” those of 2023, when an estimated 84,000 to 100,000-plus fish died after prolonged drought and heat. Samples recently collected from six points along the Cowichan River show the water is seeing significant daily fluctuations in pH and dissolved oxygen levels similar to those of 2023. …Weir flows were reduced this spring so more water could be maintained in the summer. Researchers are also looking to identify, protect and improve cold-water refuge areas along the river that could provide fish a respite from the heat when waters warm. …Built in the 1950s to provide water for the pulp mill at Crofton, the Cowichan weir is owned and operated by Domtar.
As wildfires become more frequent and intense across Canada, fire officials are seeing stark differences between northwestern and northeastern Ontario. They say it all comes down to what’s burning, how it burns, and where. More than 2.2 million hectares have burned in Ontario’s northwest since 2015, compared with around 287,000 hectares in the northeast. “The three things that we need to consider are the weather, the fuels and the topography,” said Chelene Hanes, a wildland fire research scientist at the Great Lakes Forestry Centre in Sault Ste. Marie. Northwestern Ontario typically gets a minimal amount of rain, whereas the northeast has a wetter climate and vast peatlands, she explained. …”On the [northwest] side of the province, and moving into the prairies, they’ve experienced a bit more drought, which is influencing the moisture of the fuels. So that is causing more ignitions to happen as well, because it’s drier,” Hanes said.
WHITBY, Ontario — Ryan Turnbull, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance… highlighted a $4-million federal investment for tree-planting projects in urban and suburban areas in southern Ontario. Trees For Life will collaborate with planting partners to plant an average of 24,000 trees annually over five years, for a total of 120,000 trees in communities across southern Ontario. The collaboration with Trees For Life is already ahead of target, supporting the planting of 83,000 trees in southern Ontario with 35,000 trees planted in 2024 and 48,000 trees planted across 40 projects in 2025 to date. This project builds on a successful regional model piloted in the Durham Region. 
WYOMING — The future of roadless areas in the Bighorn National Forest and other national forest system lands is uncertain after the Trump administration announced that it would rescind the 2001 roadless rule. …Of the Bighorn National Forest’s 1.1 million acres, 600,000 acres are managed as inventoried roadless areas. In these areas, road construction and reconstruction and timber harvesting are prohibited. Rollins’ action will require environmental analysis, compliance with the Endangered Species Act, tribal consultation and coordination with affected states, according to the U.S. Forest Service. So, at this point, how the proposal will impact forest management is uncertain. …Bighorn National Forest Supervisor Andrew Johnson said he planned to seek a technical correction to the forest’s roadless boundaries from Forest Service Chief Tom Schultz. Johnson said that roughly 50% of the forest’s suitable timber base is located in areas designated as roadless.
Russia’s timber industry is warning of widespread production shutdowns as the sector reels from Western sanctions, declining demand and a surging ruble that has battered the country’s export competitiveness. …The Russian Association of Organizations and Enterprises of the Pulp and Paper Industry described the current moment as one of the industry’s most difficult periods in modern history. Industry data show that timber harvesting fell 13% in 2024 compared with pre-war levels in 2021, lumber production dropped 11% and plywood output declined 23%. Even pulp production, one of the sector’s more stable outputs, decreased by 3%. Major industry players including Segezha Group and ULK Group have been restructuring loans over the past two years in response to falling output, sliding prices and soaring costs. But the situation has continued to deteriorate, especially within the export-heavy pulp and paper sector. Compounding the problem is the Central Bank’s steep 20% key interest rate along with a hike in the profit tax rate from 20% to 25%.
…In the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami, Japan shut down not just Fukushima but all of its nuclear plants, a move that resulted in the loss of a third of its electrical power. …Japan faced a daunting energy crisis that it addressed… with conventional fuels such as natural gas and “bioproducts” including wood pellets derived from the logging of BC’s Interior forests. …Last year, roughly two million tonnes of those pellets arrived Japanese ports from BC, linked to a dozen mills in the province that make wood pellets derived from trees logged in the province’s rapidly dwindling primary forests — natural forests never previously subject to industrial logging. …Which means that in the name of creating allegedly clean energy, forests are being razed just to burn the wood. …The strain on the province’s stressed forests is [also] coming from other bioenergy producers, including those who want to use wood to make jet fuel.
New Brunswick’s biggest industrial carbon emitters pumped out lower amounts of greenhouse gases in 2023, but the reductions were not enough to keep pace with tightening emissions standards. The gap between the total emissions by the province’s 15 biggest industrial polluters and their regulated emissions limits grew larger, according to numbers from the provincial government. That left them paying more under the province’s credit-trading carbon pricing system. Even so, that system is gaining traction, with more of those credits changing hands. …New Brunswick’s industrial carbon price is based on a credit trading system, a financial incentive for the 15 largest industrial emitters to stay below their emissions standards. If they do, they earn what are called performance credits they can sell for a profit. Plants that go above their standards must buy credits, adding to their cost. …The 15 big emitters collectively bought $21.1 million worth of fund credits in 2023, up from $12.6 million in 2022.
On May 23, 2025, Maine’s Governor Janet Mills signed into law “An Act to Require Landowners to Report Their Participation in a Forest Carbon Program or Project”. The new law requires landowners enrolled in forest carbon credit programs or projects to report, on an annual basis, basic data on their participation in such programs to the state of Maine. …The purpose of the reporting requirement is to provide the state with visibility into the emerging carbon credit market and the amount of land in Maine enrolled in such programs. …However, a potential challenge arises if these credits are sold in external markets to offset emissions elsewhere. Maine’s robust forest products industry also has an interest in understanding how carbon credit project enrollment may impact the overall amount of land available for harvest.
MOUNT HOOD, Oregon — The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday afternoon issued a Level 3 (go now) evacuation order for a new, five-acre wildfire on Mount Hood that was first reported late in the morning about three miles northwest of Timothy Lake. As of 4 p.m., the evacuation order does not affect the campgrounds and trails immediately around Timothy Lake, a popular recreational spot about 90 minutes from Portland. But helicopters are scooping large buckets of water from the lake to suppress the fire. Firefighters on the ground also have started an “aggressive initial attack,” the U.S. Forest Service said. The evacuation order affects a two-mile radius around the much smaller Dinger Lake and includes Anvil Lake and the Anvil Lake Trail 724. The order so far only affects remote campsites and hikers. …Dubbed the Anvil fire, it is burning near Forest Road 5820.