The past few years have been tough for Canada’s forest industry. …In response to US tariffs and as a partial solution to our continuing housing crisis, Prime Minister Carney has made a commendable move, providing support for the lumber industry and setting a target of doubling housing starts. He’s also announced the Canadian Forest Sector Transformation Task Force. Achieving Mr. Carney’s targets for the forestry sector will require transformation of our wood products and construction industries. …When a log is cut up for lumber, about 40% of the tree is converted to residual chips, and without demand for wood chips to make paper, production of lumber will not be viable. New, alternative uses for those residuals become essential. One option would be to replace a number of idled pulp mills with a couple of large, modern mills.
…New pulp mill designs act as biorefineries, making a range of products. Heat can be exported to district heating plants and power to the grid. Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, can be used in various industrial processes. Currently, methanol is made largely from natural gas, so replacing this product with wood-based spirits offers a carbon advantage. Lignin extracted from pulp mills can be used to displace petroleum-based incumbents in a range of products such as plywood glues and polyurethanes. Currently, because of the steep decline in demand for our pulp and paper products, we are only cutting half the wood that provincial forest ministries deem sustainable. This leaves large amounts of biomass in the forests, which can amplify the threat of wildfires. Reinvesting in our forest sector can help us to lower the risk of catastrophic fires going forward. [to access the full story a Globe and Mail subscription is required]
The US Lumber Coalition has expanded its list of complaints against Canadian softwood producers. The group has presented nine “new subsidy allegations,” claiming that Canadian producers benefit from federal government programs, including one that offers refundable tax credits for clean technology such as solar power. …The Commerce Department is investigating the nine new allegations put forward by the group. Canada has repeatedly rejected American arguments that Canadian producers benefit from subsidies and also denies dumping. …One of the group’s complaints targets a federal program in Canada, open to eligible forestry companies, that provides refundable tax credits for carbon capture, utilization and storage. In addition, the group’s allegations name provincial programs in BC, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. …The Commerce Department deferred a potential probe, suggested by the Coalition, into cases pertaining to alleged subsidies for long-term timber tenures in BC and Alberta. [to access the full story a Globe & Mail subscription is required]
Raw logs were being loaded for export at the shuttered Crofton pulp mill – just weeks after hundreds of local workers were laid off over a lack of wood fibre, and as about 120 sidelined Chemainus sawmill employees brace for their EI benefits to run dry. “I don’t want a handout, I want a job,” said Brian Bull, who was laid off from Western Forest Products’ Chemainus sawmill. …North Cowichan’s mayor says repeated appeals to federal officials to grant workers the additional 20 weeks of EI benefits promised by the Prime Minister in the summer of 2025 have gone unanswered. “There’s about 120 workers impacted at the Chemainus sawmill. The majority are set to lose their EI benefits next month. …So laid-off Chemainus sawmill workers are urging the provincial government to stop raw log exports. Elzinga said he fears their the Chemainus sawmill may never re-open, due a lack of fibre supply.
The CN railway running through 100 Mile House will not be discontinued after all. District of 100 Mile House Mayor Maureen Pinkney said that the consultant hired to assess the rail line’s future had told her, and around 87 other stakeholders in the region between North Vancouver and Prince George, that removal of the rails was off the table. …CN Rail announced it would be discontinuing service between Squamish and 100 Mile House… and that rails and ties are removed after discontinuance. …Potentials for the new use of the rail tracks include the return of passenger rail to 100 Mile House. …Pinkney said that there could be opportunities from the saved rail line to make up for lost tax revenue from the closure of the West Fraser Mill, as well as the OSB plant. 
The decision by the US Supreme Court to invalidate many of President Trump’s tariffs has been met with mixed reactions in Quebec, as the steel, aluminum and lumber sectors remain subject to US tariffs. Economy Minister Jean Boulet said, “its effects for Quebec seem limited,” noting that Quebec exports in accordance with CUSMA were already exempt. “American tariffs on lumber and other key sectors remain in place,” Boulet stressed. …Stakeholders from Quebec’s economic and union sectors pointed out that Friday’s ruling is far from putting an end to the trade war with our southern neighbors. …“While this decision is great news for free trade, its impact on Canada remains limited and we are not out of the woods yet,” said senior public policy analyst Gabriel Giguère in a statement. Moreover, the review of the USMCA planned for this year still looms over Canada-US relations.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency said it will halt collections of tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act at 12:01 a.m. EST on Tuesday, more than three days after the US Supreme Court declared the duties illegal. The agency said in a message to shippers on its Cargo Systems Messaging Service that it will de-activate all tariff codes associated with US President Trump’s prior IEEPA-related orders as of Tuesday. The IEEPA tariff collection halt coincides with Trump’s imposition of a new, 15% global tariff under a different legal authority to replace the ones struck down by the Supreme Court on Friday. CBP gave no reason why it was continuing to collect the tariffs days after the Supreme Court’s ruling. The message noted that the collection halt does not affect other tariffs imposed by Trump under the Section 232 national security statute and the Section 301 unfair trade practices statute.
It took only a few hours after the 
VANCOUVER, BC – Canfor Corporation announced today that it will record a non-cash asset write down and impairment charge totaling approximately $321 million in its fourth quarter of 2025 results. Of this amount, $215 million relates to the Company’s lumber segment and $106 million relates to its pulp and paper segment. In the lumber segment, the impairment is associated with the Company’s European operations and reflects ongoing log supply pressures in the region, which have resulted in significant increases in log costs and reduced asset carrying values. In the pulp segment, the impairment reflects sustained declines in global US-dollar pulp list prices as well as continued challenges in securing economically viable fibre necessary to support operations. This impairment charge is non-cash in nature and does not affect Canfor’s liquidity position, cash flows or day-to-day operations.
Contractors in certain niches can expect some meaningful materials price reductions after the Supreme Court struck down most of President Trump’s tariffs Friday. The court rejected Trump’s claim to authority to impose reciprocal tariffs. That would drive “a modest but meaningful reduction in materials price escalation” for specialty equipment, HVAC and electrical systems and fixtures, said Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors. …But the administration quickly signaled plans for alternative tariff methods shortly after the ruling. AGC also noted other materials-specific tariffs on lumber, steel, aluminum and copper products are unaffected by Friday’s decision. Taken together, that means the Supreme Court decision “could be short-lived and completely counteracted,” said Basu. That back-and-forth tends to stall construction activity as owners and contractors weigh whether the decision will hold. …AGC has told builders not to hold their breath waiting for refund checks.
New residential construction in the US rose to a five-month high in December, as homebuilders boosted production to take advantage of lower borrowing costs. Housing starts increased 6.2% to an annual pace of 1.4 million homes in December, according to figures released Wednesday by the government, which were delayed by fall’s federal shutdown. …The advance was broad-based, with both single-family home starts and apartment projects rising at year’s end. The number of one-family homes started was the highest since February. The stronger construction numbers suggest that builders were growing more confident at year’s end even as they continued to sell off a bloated inventory of new houses. For the full year, however, starts notched a fourth-straight annual decline …In December, building permits, which point to future construction, rose 4.3% to an annualized pace of 1.45 million, the highest since March, government data show. Single-family permits fell slightly. [to access the full story a Bloomberg subscription is required]
Massachusetts is considering changing state building codes to allow single staircases in multi-family residential buildings up to six stories. Advocates say the change would result in smaller buildings, space savings that could lead to 130,000 new housing units. Before changing the building codes, which currently require two exit stairways, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey has signed an executive order establishing a technical advisory panel to study potential safety issues. “We’re all about making it easier to build more housing across our state to drive down costs for everyone,” Healey said in a statement. “While the double-stair requirement plays an important role in ensuring safety, it’s also holding us back from the type of housing construction we need to meet demand.” …New York City and Seattle, Washington have “permitted single-stair buildings up to six stories for decades,” the administration says…, as have the states of Tennessee, Montana, and Connecticut.
The forest industry and related associations, unions and community leaders have now coalesced behind the banner “forestry is a solution.” Their purpose, they say, is “to address the urgent challenges, from building affordable housing to reducing wildfire risks in our backyards” and to “rally British Columbians to support forestry workers and their families.” They will roll out the old dogma that BC practices the most sustainable forestry in the world. …The real purpose, I suspect, is that the coalition wants to continue the old model of intensive industrial forestry, despite the reality that our forests can no longer support this outdated model. In 2003, in an address at UBC, Pedersen, the chief forester of the day, stated that the forest industries’ plan was to harvest BC’s primary forests as quickly as possible and convert them into densely planted managed forests. Today, they have achieved that vision.
QUEBEC — A group of First Nations chiefs has filed a lawsuit claiming Aboriginal title over three large tracts of land. They say it’s to have more control over forestry but the implications go much further. For months, First Nations land defenders have been disrupting the logging industry on their traditional lands. It started in protest of Bill 97, the controversial forestry reform bill that Quebec scrapped in September. Nitassinan hereditary chief Dave Petiquay says the group of hereditary chiefs — from the Haute-Mauricie and Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean regions want the power to decide who can log on their lands and where. Lawyer Frédéric Bérard argues the Canadian constitution gives them that right. …The lawyer says, if successful, the suit would have repercussions for hereditary chiefs across the country and could impact future major infrastructure projects. The chiefs say they are willing to go all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
New research from The Nature Conservancy, the University of California, Berkeley and the USDA Forest Service, published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management, details how wildfires could be leveraged to increase forest resilience to future high-severity fires across the Western United States. Wildfires can be a powerful regenerative force for nature. However, modern wildfires in forests across the Western US have become uncharacteristically destructive, largely due to climate change and more than a century of fire suppression. Mechanical thinning and prescribed fire are used to reduce wildfire size and severity, but compliance restrictions and logistical challenges, as well as agency staffing capacity and funding constraints, often limit the scale of their treatment. The paper recommends that forest managers work in and adjacent to recent wildfire footprints to increase the pace and scale of fuel treatments, including low-to-moderate-severity wildfires (beneficial wildfire), and outlines three pathways for effectively leveraging these footprints.
A research paper questions a key rationale for expanding road access in national forests. Lifting restrictions on road construction in national forests could lead to more wildfires, according to a newly published study. The research led by a senior scientist at The Wilderness Society — which opposes the Trump administration’s proposal to reopen forests to new roads and logging — reinforces earlier studies finding that fire ignitions are more numerous near forest roads, including for fires started by lightning. The new research, published in the 
ARIZONA — A coalition of local governments, timber industry representatives and environmental groups plans to tell congressional leaders and US Forest Service officials this week that Northern Arizona’s forests — and the timber industry that depends on them — face collapse without construction of a second, 30-megawatt biomass-burning power plant. The group will carry that message to Washington, DC, arguing that a “biomass bottleneck” threatens forest restoration efforts, watersheds and rural communities. Two concurring reports outline the concern: one issued by the Eastern Arizona Counties Organization and the Natural Resources Working Group in the White Mountains, and another from the Greater Flagstaff Forest Partnership (GFFP) and the Forest Biomass Coalition Working Group. …The report concludes that, while private industry may eventually develop products such as fiberboard or biochar from forest byproducts, only a second biomass-burning plant near Flagstaff or Winslow offers a proven, near-term solution.
With European manufacturing output down by up to 40% since 2018, and 200,000 industrial jobs lost last year, the European Confederation of the Paper Industry (Cepi) wants to put biomass, circularity and decarbonization financing back at the heart of the industrial debate. The trade organization relies on a report commissioned from Deloitte. According to this analysis… the use of biomass and efficiency in the circularity of materials are structural advantages for European industry in the face of imported fossil products. The report highlights the fact that the forestry and timber industry, which is already governed by national legislation, has to contend with over a hundred additional European regulations. In Cepi’s view, this overlap is holding back biomass-related industrial development. Moreover, paper collection and recycling remains fragmented across the member states. This heterogeneity complicates the optimization of secondary material flows, despite the fact that paper is one of the most recycled materials in Europe.