Canada’s annual inflation rate rose to 2.4% in March, Statistics Canada said on Monday, as the cost of oil sent fuel prices way up. High prices for energy, especially gas, due to the war in Iran drove inflation higher. Energy prices were 3.9% higher compared to a year ago, and the data agency said March’s 21.2% monthly increase in the price of gasoline was the largest on record. The impact on inflation would have been higher, Statistics Canada noted, if it weren’t being compared to prices from March 2025 that still included the consumer carbon tax, which was dropped in April of last year. Higher fuel costs also impacted the cost of transportation — up 3.7% year over year in March — and helped drive overall inflation higher. …Without the price of gas, the pace of inflation would have risen to 2.2%. Douglas Porter, at the Bank of Montreal, says core inflation was actually milder than expected.
VANCOUVER, BC – West Fraser Timber provided notice of Q1, 2026 conference call and softwood lumber duties and operational update. …The Company expects to record a $73 million non-cash charge in Q1-26 to export duty expense, representing the difference between previously recorded expense for 2024 based on CVD cash deposit rates of 2.19% and 6.85% during the year and the preliminary CVD rate released of 15.93%. …Additionally, the USDOC is processing the liquidation of ADD for the first administrative review period (AR1) covering exports between August 2017 and December 2017. Based on the liquidation rate, the Company expects to receive a refund of $15 million in 2026. Operational Update: Full operations have resumed at the Company’s Blue Ridge Alberta lumber mill following a fire in January of 2026, and production has commenced at the new lumber facility in Henderson, Texas. Manufacturing operations at the Company’s High Level, Alberta OSB mill will be concluded by the end of April.
Lumber futures tumbled toward $580 per thousand board feet, marking a one month low as the combination of high interest rates and falling home construction has crushed demand faster than sawmills can reduce supply. This downward pressure is driven by a 14.2% collapse in single family housing starts and a 5.4% decline in building permits that signaled an abrupt cooling of spring activity. While ongoing sawmill closures have removed 1.3 billion board feet of capacity and US duties on Canadian imports remain at 45% these supply factors are failing to support prices against a sharp loss of buyers. The recent surge in mortgage rates to 6.46% has stifled traffic and left builders managing a 2.4% increase in unsold inventory that necessitates immediate price cuts. Furthermore the April 2nd announcement of C$2.1 billion in Canadian forestry subsidies has introduced expectations of more wood availability that offsets the risks of shipping delays through the Strait of Hormuz.
OTTAWA — New data released by Statistics Canada suggests the economy was rebounding in the first few months of the year after a mild contraction to close 2025. The agency said on Tuesday real gross domestic product edged up 0.1% in January, helped by strength in goods-producing industries, which expanded by 0.2%. Looking ahead, the agency added that its preliminary estimate for February suggests the economy grew 0.2% for the month, though it cautioned the figure would be revised. Statistics Canada’s initial estimates for January published last month expected real GDP to be relatively flat. Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO, said “it does look like we had moderate growth in the first quarter of the year, which, given a lot of the other indicators, is not a bad place to be”. …Statistics Canada estimated the economy contracted 0.5% on an annualized basis in the final quarter of 2025.
Lumber futures retreated toward $590 per thousand board feet as the cooling of the North American residential construction sector eroded the demand floor that had supported the market since January. The primary downward pressure stems from a slowdown in housing activity where single-family starts plunged 14.2% in March and building permits fell 5.4% signaling a sharp reduction in seasonal requirements. This demand destruction was catalyzed by a 11 basis point surge in mortgage rates to 6.45% following the Federal Reserve decision to hold interest rates steady alongside global inflationary spikes. While geopolitical tensions in the Strait of Hormuz initially pushed energy costs higher, the resulting increase in financing costs and a 10% drop in US housing starts outweighed the potential for supply chain disruptions. Furthermore a 2.4% increase in unsold builder inventory forced price cuts.
B.C. saw a significant increase in energy and mineral exports in February compared with a year earlier, while wood exports continued to decline. The province exported more than $4.8 billion worth of products in February, a 16.3 per cent monthly increase and a 2.8 per cent year-to-date increase compared with the same period last year. …However, exports in the wood sector continued to decline. About $479 million worth of products were exported in February, an 18.1 per cent decline from January. Lumber saw the sharpest drop, down 27.7 per cent, followed by other panel products (-23.4 per cent) and plywood and veneer (-19.1 per cent). As a result, year-to-date wood exports fell by more than 30 per cent compared with the same period in 2025. Machinery and equipment exports also declined, down 17.9 per cent month-over-month and 27.6 per cent year-to-date.
The economic headwinds facing B.C. are expected to have an even greater impact than originally expected, with accounting firm Deloitte Canada downgrading its economic forecast for the province in its most recent update. Originally projecting 1.6 per cent GDP growth in 2026 in its January report, the financial consulting giant now predicts B.C. will have “muted” growth of only 1.2 per cent. Dawn Desjardins, chief economist at Deloitte Canada, said some of the main culprits are the declining forestry sector, which continues to face mill closures and thousands of job losses due to a lack of fibre, as well as crippling U.S. duties, a population decrease, and uncertainty surrounding the future of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.
For the second consecutive month, a leading index reported an increase in North American containerboard pricing. Month-over-month containerboard prices rose $30 per ton in April, following March’s $40 per ton increase, according to monthly data released Friday in Fastmarkets RISI’s Pulp & Paper Week publication. When also taking into consideration the $20 per ton decrease the index reported in February, containerboard pricing has a year-to-date net increase of $50 per ton. …On the boxboard front, most prices remained relatively flat in April. Solid bleached sulfate remains in oversupply, although demand was flat to slightly improved. 
US population growth slowed notably in the latest Vintage 2025 population estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, with the nation expanding by just 0.5% in 20251, roughly half the pace of the prior year. The deceleration was primarily driven by a sharp decline in net international migration (NIM), which dropped from 2.7 million to 1.3 million, while natural change remained relatively stable. Population gains remain concentrated in the South and parts of the West, while many areas in the Midwest and Northeast experienced slower growth or population declines. …At the county level, population growth slowed across much of the country. Among the nation’s 3,143 counties and the District of Columbia, the majority experienced decelerating population gains in 2025. …Population flows continue to shift away from the largest and most expensive counties toward smaller and less densely populated areas.
In the first quarter of 2026, the NAHB/Westlake Royal Remodeling Market Index (RMI) posted a reading of 62, down two points compared to the previous quarter. Despite this decline, the overall reading has been solidly in positive territory since Q1 2020. Remodeler sentiment remained generally positive in the first quarter, even as many remodelers are still working to manage their customers’ cost expectations. Only a relatively small share report homeowners putting projects on hold due to economic and political uncertainty. Ongoing positive remodeler sentiment is consistent with NAHB’s outlook, given an aging housing stock and the lock-in effect of elevated mortgage rates keeping owners in the homes longer. In the first quarter, remodelers reported 21% of their projects were associated with home improvements made shortly after a purchase, while only 4% were for homeowners’ projected to ready a home for sale. 
The landscape of the United States wood products industry in 2026 is being shaped by evolution from commodity lumber toward high-performance engineered wood systems. …While traditional sawmills have faced a turbulent consolidation period, the emergence of mass timber, specifically glulam and cross laminated timber, have created a high-growth sector that is increasingly more independent from the traditional volatility of the single-family residential market. …On the supply side, the wood industry is navigating a period of restructured supply and capacity following a series of significant mill closures in recent years. …Looking ahead to 2027 and beyond, as new mills come online, the industry is poised to move engineered wood products and mass timber from a niche specialty to a standard building practice. The core business challenge for the next 24 months will be the development of a more robust domestic supply chain that can support American builders amid logistics disruptions. 
Mortgage rates, which dipped below 6% in February, climbed back up to end the month just under 6.4%. According to 
National housing data shows deck inclusion in new homes remains below 18%, according to the US Census Bureau’s Survey of Construction. For dealers and distributors, that number doesn’t tell the whole story. It does, however, set the stage for a stronger, more profitable era for decking—especially in custom home construction and high-end remodel markets. Custom builds may represent a smaller slice of total housing starts, but they also make up a disproportionately larger share of premium decking materials and system upgrades. And that’s where one opportunity lies. In the custom builder market, decks are far from an afterthought. They’re often part of the architectural plan from Day 1—particularly in markets with walkout basements, elevated foundations, and building lots with natural views. …The stakes go beyond just a nice-looking place to sit outside. Today’s builders, remodelers, and homeowners need environmentally sound, code ready, and easy to install materials.
US consumer confidence unexpectedly edged up in March, but households anticipated higher inflation over the next 12 months amid a surge in gasoline prices and continued tariffs pass-through, a survey showed on Tuesday. The Conference Board said its consumer confidence index increased to 91.8 this month. Data for February was revised slightly down to show the index at 91.0 instead of 91.2. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the index at 88.0. “Comments about prices and the cost of goods suggest that the cost of living remained at the top of consumers’ minds,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at the Conference Board. Consumers’ average and median 12-month inflation expectations surged in March to levels last seen in August 2025. The month-long U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has sent global oil prices surging more than 50%.
The United States is facing a housing shortage that continues to put upward pressure on home prices and limit access to affordable housing. According to the Up for Growth 2025 Housing Underproduction study, the country remains millions of homes short of meeting current demand – a gap that cannot be closed without increasing the pace and scale of home construction. …In residential construction, two primary lumber species underpin nearly all home building: Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF) and Southern Yellow Pine (SYP). These are not interchangeable commodities, they are complementary materials with distinct structural properties, regional availability, and performance characteristics. SPF, largely grown in Canada and the Pacific Northwest, is valued for its strength-to-weight ratio, dimensional stability, and ease of use in framing applications. SYP, produced primarily in the U.S. Southeast, offers high density and strength, making it well-suited for other structural and composite uses. Both are essential, and neither alone can meet the needs of the U.S. housing market.
Log cost inflation, tightening felling regulations, muted end-product demand and the disruption of Middle East & North Africa (MENA) export channels by the conflict in the Persian Gulf are combining to test the resilience of sawmills in Finland and Sweden, with the pressure being felt all the way to Central European timber yards. In September 2025, Finland and Sweden jointly wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, warning that both countries were on track to miss their binding EU forest carbon-sink targets. …Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said, that reducing felling volumes was “not a viable option” and that it would have “dire consequences” for Nordic economies.” This high-level lobbying by Norway and Sweden highlights the central tension now confronting the Nordic sawn timber industry: that a sector already struggling with elevated sawlog costs and sluggish end-user demand has found itself additionally squeezed from above by environmental regulation.
Japan’s