Kevin Mason
The Global Supply Chain Pressure Index, which provides a gauge of global supply chain conditions, spiked in April and currently sits at its highest level in almost four years. Several other measures, including the World Bank’s Supply Chain Stress Index are hovering around all-time highs as well. The conflict in the Middle East and resultant spike in energy prices has clearly driven some of the recent increase in supply chain pressure, and the logjam in the Strait of Hormuz, along with some ongoing challenges in the Red Sea, have forced many vessels to take longer routes, adding travel time, increasing fuel costs, and stretching capacity.
However, the situation in Iran is not the sole driver of recent supply chain pressure: In the US we are seeing an acute shortage of truck drivers following a government crackdown on driver qualifications and after a wave of trucking-firm bankruptcies. As a result, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ long-distance trucking price index has recently jumped from a reading of 181 in January to 210 in April (also approaching all-time highs last seen during the pandemic). Similarly, overland freight pricing data from DAT Freight and Analytics shows that flatbed truck rates have surged since the onset of the Iran war—the national average spot rate for flatbed trucks was $2.72 per mile in February and has rocketed to $3.64 by May. DAT’s national load-to-truck ratio (the number of loads posted for every available truck posted on the DAT load board) sat at an eye-watering 72 in April, up from 35 in April 2025 and just 19 in April 2024.
A deal with Iran may be in the works, but as we learned after the COVID pandemic, it can take months (if not years) for supply chains to normalize. Buckle up.
The Trump administration wants to reimpose a 10% tariff on top trading partners including the EU and Canada, while hitting others with a higher rate, citing concerns about forced labor. The US Trade Representative’s Office made those proposals as part of a report with the results of its investigation into 60 trading partners over their failure to impose and enforce laws to prohibit goods made with forced labor. It’s one of two sprawling trade investigations the administration launched earlier this spring in an effort to restore President Donald Trump’s global tariffs that were struck down by the Supreme Court in February. …The USTR probe, conducted under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, found that six countries have failed to effectively enforce existing laws prohibiting goods made with forced labor: Canada, Ecuador, the European Union, Indonesia, Mexico and Pakistan. The report recommended a 10% duty. It recommended the same duty for another nine countries.
Canada has given the US and Mexico official notice that it wants the free trade deal between the three countries to be renewed. In a letter to his American and Mexican counterparts, Canada-US Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc said the country is seeking renewal of CUSMA when it comes up for review on July 1. LeBlanc is in Washington Tuesday for a meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer. All the signals from the White House over the past year and a half indicate that the Trump administration does not want a straightforward renewal of CUSMA and instead wants significant changes to its terms. …LeBlanc calls CUSMA “highly beneficial to each of our countries and to the integrated North American economy,” but goes on to acknowledge that the other countries may want to propose “improvements.” …Whatever happens on July 1, CUSMA is slated to remain in effect until 2036. 
Both B.C.’s attorney general and lawyers for the Cowichan Nation welcomed the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision not to hear a case out of New Brunswick on First Nations’ ownership claims of private industrial forest land. It comes as the BC government and Cowichan Nation pursue appeals after a contentious BC Supreme Court ruling that recognizes that the Cowichan Nation’s Aboriginal title extends to privately-owned property in the Richmond area. …BC Attorney General Niki Sharma said that the decision not to hear that case bodes well for the province’s appeal in the Cowichan case. The Crown-Indigenous Relations Department said the Wolastoqey decision allowed by the Supreme Court of Canada to stand was an important ruling, adding that “private property rights are fundamental.” …Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie hopes the rejection of the Wolastoqey Nation’s leave application “is a signal of the current thought process of the Supreme Court of Canada.”
FORT ST. JOHN, BC — After much speculation, the Canfor sawmill in Fort St. John has officially been sold to outside interests. Canfor media relations representatives confirmed the sale of the sawmill, planer, pellet plant and energy systems to Rocky Mountain Salvage on May 29th. Rocky Mountain Salvage is a scrap metal and garbage recycling company with interests in Hinton and Edson, Alberta. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. “Since announcing the closure of the Fort St. John sawmill, Canfor is working to divest the site and assets,” said Canfor. …The sawmill was announced as closing in September 2024, affecting 220 jobs, along with a facility in Chetwynd.
A B.C. forestry company embroiled in insolvency proceedings has been handed a $429,000 penalty and two-year ban from hiring migrant workers after it was found to have violated several federal regulations. The sanctions to San Industries (part of the San Group) came after federal inspectors found it had breached five sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations, rules designed to protect temporary foreign workers. According to a May 15 decision, inspectors found pay or working conditions did not match what San Industries had advertised. The employer was also found not to be engaged in the business the workers were hired for and could not show that the job it had sought to fill matched its Labour Market Impact Assessment application. And in another violation, San Industries was found to have broken federal or provincial laws for hiring and recruiting employees. …At $429,000, the penalty is the province’s second-largest on record.
The global trade landscape is shifting rapidly, which has created uncertainty and challenges for workers, industries and communities across Canada. …Workers whose jobs have been directly or indirectly impacted by global tariffs will receive support to help them adapt, retrain and succeed, as a result of a partnership agreement announced today by Wayne Long, Secretary of State, alongside Jean-Claude D’Amours, New Brunswick’s Minister of Training and Labour. …Specifically, $13.8 million over three years will be invested through the new Canada–New Brunswick Workforce Tariff Response to support workers in the softwood lumber, mining, construction and transportation sectors, as well as other directly and indirectly tariff-affected industries. This new funding will help over 1,500 workers in New Brunswick build new skills and seize emerging opportunities.
KINGSPORT, Tennessee — Domtar Paper has filed a response to 
Framing lumber sales were slow to get started after the long holiday weekend in the US in most markets. Many buyers paused early to assess market conditions – especially prospects for shipping any new orders – before resuming moderate replenishment as the week progressed. Prices shifted modestly. Recent trends in sales of western S-P-F were little changed. Discounts grew increasingly tougher for buyers to procure as order files lengthened and mills cleared existing accumulations. …Lumber futures were little changed week to date, with the front month trading near par with the cash market in most deliverable species. …Southern pine mill sales outpaced producers’ ability to ship the loads, and backlogs of sold lumber continued to accumulate throughout the distribution pipeline. Prices shifted mildly with sales frequently reported on both sides of last week’s reported levels. …In the Inland market, prices were predominantly flat, or mildly higher in a few cases.
Rising mortgage rates aren’t the only thing freezing the housing market. Builders are contending with a fresh wave of sticker shock on the job site, as soaring prices for copper, lumber, diesel and aluminum drive up the cost of putting homes in the ground. A mix of geopolitical turmoil, tariffs and supply-chain disruptions is rippling through construction materials markets at a moment when affordability is already stretched thin, the Wall Street Journal reported. The result is higher costs for developers, more uncertainty for homebuilders and even fewer paths to affordable homeownership. Copper has become one of the industry’s biggest headaches. …Lumber prices are climbing again, too. Canadian sawmill closures and tariffs tied to the long-running U.S.-Canada softwood dispute have tightened supply heading into peak building season. …The broader concern for developers is that construction inflation could become self-reinforcing. Higher material costs feed broader inflation fears, which in turn keep borrowing costs elevated. 
The US commercial construction and wood products landscape has been undergoing a noticeable geographic realignment. …At the center of this transition are two powerhouse species that help define the market: Douglas Fir and Southern Yellow Pine. Understanding how manufacturers are positioning themselves around these distinct timber baskets might offer valuable insight into where resources are building the critical infrastructure for the next decades of commercial, agricultural, and residential construction in the United States. …While the West Coast navigates these supply bottlenecks, the American South seems to be experiencing a sustained wave of modernization and investment, capitalizing on robust regional resources. …Take for example the recent investments made by companies like Canfor. …The company opened a cutting-edge sawmill complex in Axis, Alabama, an endeavor that highlights the industry’s shift toward high-tech manufacturing.
Mortgage rates this week rose to the highest level since August, more bad news for home shoppers during what is usually the busiest time of the year for home sales. The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage rose to 6.51% this week, from 6.36% last week, 
US housing starts declined in April as construction of single-family homes dropped by the most in nearly a year, suggesting builders are growing cautious amid higher mortgage rates. New residential construction decreased 2.8% last month to an annualised rate of 1.47 million homes, according to government figures released on Thursday. Starts of single-family homes declined 9%, the most since August, to an annualised 930,000 pace. Multifamily housing starts, however, rose more than 10% to the highest level since May 2023. The report also showed single-family permits, a leading indicator of future construction, fell 2.6% to the lowest level since August. The figures suggest home builders remain focused on working off a still-elevated inventory of new properties. …Numerous challenges remain for a sustained pickup in home building, including rising mortgage rates, flagging consumer confidence and stretched household budgets.
Russian lumber production is rising despite deteriorating sales and falling exports, driving inventories higher as weak household purchasing power limits the domestic market’s ability to absorb excess supply, according to the monthly Russian Lumber Industry Insights report. Companies are trying to maintain production volumes, the report said, but warehouse stocks are rising because domestic demand is weakening. The ministry in May sharply reduced its growth outlook, revising GDP growth for the current year to 0.4% and to 1.4% in 2027, and reported that the economy contracted by 0.3% in the first quarter. …At the same time, the crisis in China’s construction sector has reduced import demand and intensified price competition. …Logistics costs for Russian suppliers continue to rise, the report said, further reducing the profitability of shipments. Taken together, weakening domestic demand, lost market share in China and higher transport costs are creating pressure on exporters and contributing to a buildup of stocks.
Canadian wood producers and manufacturers say they know how to solve the country’s housing shortage and, at the same time, increase demand in the construction industry for their products. The “two-fer” solution is laid out in a recent report published by the Canada West Foundation. The report is based on a December 2025 roundtable at which the Canadian Wood Council and the Forest Products Association of Canada convened leaders from construction and forestry to discuss how to increase the use of wood products in prefabricated, modular and panelized wood construction in residential multi-storey buildings. In the CWF report, these methods of construction are identified collectively as Modern Methods of Construction, or MMC. Eric Johnson, for FPAC and CWC, says factory-built components make better use of materials and skilled labour, reducing waste and increasing productivity. …The biggest barriers to scaling up wood-based housing are not technical but regulatory and organizational.
We studied the efficiency and productivity of BC’s secondary wood manufacturing sector using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Malmquist total factor productivity index (MPI), while incorporating data from both a survey on individual firms and Statistics Canada’s sectoral data. DEA results showed that BC’s secondary wood manufacturing firms had low efficiency and the factor contributing to the inefficiency was more lack of technical capability than scale of operations in most of the business types. The MPI results reveal that SWM consistently underperforms relative to the sawmill and panel sectors, with a clear divergence emerging after the 2007–2009 financial crisis. Weak productivity growth is largely attributable to limited and inconsistent technical change, reflecting a lack of innovation and adoption of new technologies. Policies aimed at supporting the sector could focus on factors improving firms’ technical efficiency and frontier such as process optimization, technology adoption and innovation, and training and skill development.
If you’ve ever spent some time amongst old-house lovers, and especially the craftspeople who work on them, you’ll no doubt have heard mention of “old-growth lumber.” It’s a material that’s spoken of with reverence, usually as supporting evidence for the “they don’t build ’em like they used to” argument, and always contrasted with today’s lumber, which is deemed comparatively subpar. So what is it about old-growth lumber that makes it so legendary, and if it’s so great, why don’t we use it anymore? …So yes, the trees are generally between 100 and 150 years old, but old-growth lumber is also characterized by competition to survive and disturbance history. In other words, if the forest is left alone for long enough, and no natural disasters reset the clock, you end up with old-growth trees. So it’s not that we can’t produce old-growth lumber now, it’s that it doesn’t fit our production needs.
The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA), Washington, has released its 66th Annual Paper Industry Capacity and Fiber Consumption Survey. …The report shows that fiber consumption declined by 3.5% in 2025, with recovered fiber consumption decreasing by 4% and wood pulp consumption falling by 3.2%. The printing-writing paper operating rate improved, reaching 82.8% in 2025, while containerboard operating rates remained steady at 91.9%. Packaging paper production also increased by 1.7%, while boxboard production essentially was flat at 12.4 million tons and tissue production remained near 7.8 million tons. Despite the resilience shown by these sectors, US paper and paperboard production declined 3.7% last year, to 66.3 million tons, AF&PA says. …Containerboard production fell 4.4% to 36.1 million tons, and containerboard capacity declined 5.1% in 2025. …Printing-writing capacity fell 13.9% last year to 7.7 million tons. …Tissue production declined 0.8% in 2025 to 7.8 million tons, though, over time, it has represented a growing share of total US paper and paperboard capacity.
The Finnish Sawmill Industry Association is urging the government to accelerate wood construction and broaden the use of domestic wood in building, saying Finland is not using wood construction enough to raise value added for domestic wood, support investment and strengthen regional vitality. It calls for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment to lead a national wood-construction program and appoint a high-level cross-government steering group, the Finnish Sawmill Industry Association reported. The association links wood construction to Finland’s competitiveness and industrial policy and says the market’s development should be treated as part of efforts to cut emissions from the built environment. It also calls for increasing the use of domestic wood more broadly in construction, beyond wood construction in a narrow sense. …It calls for regulation and permitting processes to be developed in a direction it says enables investments and links wood construction to Finland’s clean-transition investment goals. 
Globally, fires in 2025 burned the second-lowest area on record since 2002 and emitted the third-lowest CO2 total. Yet, a third successive year of extreme wildfire emissions prevailed in Canada, and catastrophic fires in Los Angeles, South Korea and Europe killed over 90 people and forced over 300,000 evacuations. At the global scale, land area burned by wildfire has declined in since 2002, mainly owing to reduced savannah burning in Africa. However, wildfires are expanding in extratropical forests, and show increasing intensity combined with extreme socioeconomic and environmental impacts1–3. In these areas, wildfire disasters are exacerbated by human land use and the wildland–urban interface4. Many regions are experiencing episodes of extreme wildfires with high rates of spread and intensity associated with substantial loss of life, infrastructure, or carbon stores, even in years with below-average burned area. These hallmarks define an era of declining global burned area but also of rising prominence of extreme and deadly wildfires.
The Province is investing $155 million toward reforestation programs to plant more than 125 million trees throughout BC. The funding, which also includes investments from the federal government, will deliver both large-scale reforestation and targeted projects that restore critical habitats, conserve biodiversity and support wildfire recovery. “Since 2017, we’ve invested in planting 400 million trees in B.C. Now, we’re adding 125 million more,” said Ravi Parmar, Minister of Forests. “As we head into the Council of Canadian Forest Ministers Conference, hosted right here at home, we’re showing how B.C. continues to lead not only in forestry, but in reforestation and restoration. The Province’s reforestation investments will support: more than $56 million for reforestation, more than $1 million for B.C.’s Riparian Recovery Project, and more than $99 million for large-scale reforestation through the BC Forest Investment Program. …B.C. has secured more than $200 million in federal funding for reforestation and habitat restoration initiatives in British Columbia…
In 2024, the Tsay Keh Dene Nation and McLeod Lake Indian Band bought a logging licence near the town of Mackenzie from Canfor for $69M. …“It’s just a huge step to have some local Indigenous nations who are vested in our community step forward,” Makenzie Mayor Atkinson said. …But what if Canfor and others aren’t logging at rates close to what their licences say they can? If they sell such licences, what should those licences be valued at? And what role should the B.C. government play as the party that issues those licences and must approve any future sales? …Canfor, West Fraser and Western Forest Products alone control 39% of the timber that the government has firmly committed to logging companies. For decades, successive provincial governments granted logging licences to companies on the requirement that the public get something in return. The quid pro quo was that the companies would build mills.
WHISTLER — As Western spruce budworm populations continue to spread through Whistler’s forests at historically unprecedented levels, the BC government is preparing to spray thousands of hectares around the resort municipality with a biological insecticide to blunt the outbreak. The Ministry of Forests is planning to aerially treat areas using Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki (Btk)—a naturally occurring soil bacterium used for decades to control defoliating insects. Taylor Holt, the provincial resource coordinator, said… the aerial overview surveys in 2025 picked up 275,000 hectares of damage. [It’s] nearly three times as much damage as noted ever historically.” …Cheakamus Community Forest (CCF) executive director Heather Beresford, said. “So this is really the only viable treatment.” Still, she acknowledged the decision comes with uncomfortable trade-offs between wanting to prevent dead trees from posing a wildfire risk and protecting local non-budworm species who will be affected by spraying BtK.
MANITOBA — A northern Manitoba tree-planting program is trying to replace trees destroyed by wildfires, but the cancellation of the federal two billion trees program is making that more challenging. In 2016, this forest in Manitoba’s Interlake region, about 300 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, was devastated by a jack pine budworm infestation. It was starting to regenerate when wildfire ravaged the Devils Lake area in 2021. Areas just north are already burning this spring. Marley Moose says she felt sad when she returned to the forest three years ago as part of a tree-planting program through Nekoté LP, an Indigenous-owned corporation representing seven Swampy Cree First Nations in northern and central Manitoba. According to the Canadian Tree Nursery Association (CTNA), the country is losing trees faster than nature can grow them or people can plant them.
A province-wide public tour this June will bring a citizen-led proposal for forest management reform to communities across BC, with stops in Campbell River on June 11, Quadra Island on June 13 and Courtenay on June 15. Jennifer Houghton, campaign director of the New Forest Act Proposal, will lead a series of public presentations called the 2026 New Forest Act Roadshow on the future of B.C.’s forests, watersheds and forest-dependent communities. …“Right now, B.C.’s forest laws are built around maximizing timber extraction,” Houghton said. “The New Forest Act is a proposal to shift forestry toward ecological limits, stable communities, and long-term ecological function instead of short-term liquidation. …Spearheaded by the Boundary Forest Watershed Stewardship Society, the proposal has been developed with contributions from forest ecologists, including forester Herb Hammond. …More information the full 
MONTANA — The US Forest Service and the timber industry have effectively lobbied Congress to enact laws based on fire paranoia that cut the public owners of these forests out of the process. They want the government to build roads at taxpayer expense to while compromising the best remaining fish and wildlife habitat and quiet spaces. Upon a molehill of truth they have constructed a mountain of disinformation. Claiming an emergency, the Forest Service is fast-tracking commercial timber sales in ways that severely limit and exempt them from environmental analysis. …They are removing the administrative review and public objection process. The bad stuff for wildlife, fish and people including ugly clearcuts, road construction and reduced water quality are being frontloaded. The good stuff including stream restoration and road reclamation are back ended. If past is prologue, the latter will not be funded or implemented as the Forest Service shifts its priority.
DENVER — A longstanding specter of the Colorado mountains is gaining ground in a new conquest of ponderosa pine forests. An outbreak of the mountain pine beetle is spreading quickly and expected to continue this summer under “prime conditions,” according to a 
AccuWeather has released its latest outlook on what Oregon could expect for the 2026 fire season, forecasting another active year for wildfires for much of the western half of America. Experts said that 2026 may see fewer fires overall, however, drought conditions, dry vegetation and extreme heat are likely to cause fires to spread more quickly and grow larger before crews are able to contain them, resulting in more land burned. According to the company’s newly released wildfire forecast, between 65,000 and 80,000 wildfires are expected nationwide this year, burning an estimated 5.5 million to 8 million acres. That compares to 77,850 fires that burned 5.1 million acres in 2025. …Forecasters said the highest wildfire risk this year is expected across the Southwest, Rockies, Great Basin and Interior Northwest, including parts of Oregon and Washington. AccuWeather meteorologists said drought and prolonged heat are continuing to intensify wildfire conditions across much of the west.
After a series of record-breaking US heatwaves, the 2026 bee swarm season in North America has started 17 days earlier than last year, pushing beekeepers to adapt to a rapidly shifting season while raising new questions about how honeybees are responding to the climate crisis. According to a 
This week’s chemical blast that killed at least eight workers at Longview’s Nippon Dynawave Packaging highlights the potential dangers in the timber and paper manufacturing industries. …“We work in a highly hazardous atmosphere, in a highly hazardous industry,” Brian Wood, director of support services for Nippon Dynawave, said. …The industries involved in the range of economic activities from cutting timber to manufacturing paper have shed jobs in recent decades, yet this sector continues to have some of the deadliest occupations. The disaster in Longview highlights the dangerous chemicals used in paper making. In 2024, 13 people were killed while working at their paper manufacturing job, according to the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Across the country jobs in the sector have plummeted. In the last quarter century, BLS figures show paper manufacturing employment fell by 230,000 jobs to sit around 355,000 across the country. Industry researchers estimate as many as 45 mills closed last year.
LONGVIEW, Washington — Recovery crews on Friday located the ninth and final person missing at the site of the Nippon Dynawave industrial incident, bringing the death toll from the tragedy to 11. …The ruptured tank spilled up to 570,000 gallons of white liquor, a strong alkaline liquid made mostly of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide used in the papermaking process to dissolve wood chips. Officials said the liquid made it into the nearby Columbia River and several nearby ditches, sloughs, and dikes. …Longview city officials reassured residents on Thursday that the city’s water was safe, and the Washington State Department of Ecology stated that the water treatment plant would shut down automatically before contaminated water could enter the public water system. …Response crews have documented some impacts to fish and wildlife in drainage systems adjacent to the incident area. Officials said approximately 200 dead fish have been collected.
MAINE — The fire and subsequent explosion at a Maine lumber mill that killed a firefighter and injured a dozen other people was accidental and originated at the base of a silo, authorities said Tuesday. …Rapid ignition of particulate material resulted in an explosion in the silo that caused it to lift from its concrete base and release large amounts of sawdust and other materials, the Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office said. The silo then toppled and the surrounding area became engulfed in fire, the office said. Investigators will return to the facility in the coming months to conduct a more detailed examination, the fire marshal’s office said. “Investigators also determined the facility’s fire suppression system, which was located near the top of the silo, did not activate because temperatures at that elevation did not reach the activation threshold after the fire originated at the base of the silo,” the office’s statement said.