Forests minister Ravi Parmar is in the Okanagan this week meeting with an industry under siege. Longtime systemic challenges facing the forest sector have been exacerbated by escalating tariffs on softwood lumber by the Trump administration… Mill owners have been critical of BCTS for failing to get timber to market and not meeting its quotas. Parmar says he’s been tasked with getting the province back up to a harvest level of 45 million cubic metres annually. The province harvested 35 million cubic metres in 2023. “I think we can do that without a doubt,” he said, acknowledging that permitting is only half the battle… “A lot of people think it’s just permits that are holding us back from a strong and vibrant forest sector. And if that was the case, I think we could address the problem fairly quickly, to some extent. But it’s broader than that.”