BC Conservative Party Leader John Rustad closed out Day 1 of the COFI conference with a direct, politically charged address that called for a full-scale rethinking of provincial forest policy. Speaking in his dual role as Opposition Leader and longtime MLA for Nechako Lakes, Rustad framed his remarks around a central theme: the need to reassert forestry as a cornerstone of the BC economy. “Forestry isn’t just a sector,” he said. “It’s the foundation of our communities.”

Rustad began with a sharp critique  of recent government approaches to land management, fibre access, and permitting. He criticized the provincial government for what he described as a “retreat from the land base,” pointing to cumulative policy shifts that, in his view, have reduced the working forest. “We’ve been shrinking our footprint year after year,” he said. “And now we wonder why mills are closing and jobs are disappearing.” He cited provincial data showing a significant drop in the AAC and warned that BC is at risk of losing the scale and infrastructure needed to support a competitive forest industry. “When you lose a mill, you don’t get it back. When a logging contractor goes bankrupt, that capacity doesn’t come back overnight,” he said. “We’re hollowing out the core.”

Rustad called for a dramatic reversal in direction. “We need to re-establish a viable, harvestable working forest. Period,” he said. He pledged that a Conservative government would re-designate more land for active forestry and create clearer mandates for government ministries. “The Ministry of Forests should be focused on forestry,” he said. “Not on being a carbon sink.” He argued that too much emphasis on emissions reductions and carbon accounting has crowded out the Ministry’s core responsibility: supporting jobs, fibre flow, and mill infrastructure. “It’s like we’ve forgotten what the ministry is for,” he said. The Opposition Leader also took aim at the permitting backlog, calling it the number one complaint he hears from the industry. “The number of permits that get tied up for months is staggering,” he said. “We need timelines. We need accountability. And we need people in those offices who understand that time is money.”

On wildfire, Rustad argued that current policy places too much emphasis on response and not enough on proactive management. He said delayed salvage of burned timber not only wastes economic value, but also slows ecological recovery and increases fire risk. “It’s not just a missed opportunity—it’s a missed responsibility,” he said. He advocated for increased use of prescribed fire, commercial thinning, and salvage. “We should be harvesting burned timber within weeks, not months,” he said. “Every delay is lost value.” He tied wildfire and forest health back to the issue of fibre security, saying that under-utilized stands, beetle kill, and fuel accumulation all represent both risk and opportunity. “We don’t have a timber supply problem,” he said. “We have a policy problem.”

Rustad reiterated his party’s position that BC needs to re-establish the principle of the working forest and stop what he called “the drift toward conservation by default.” He pointed to Old Growth deferrals, endangered species policies, and land use planning delays as examples of how forest access has been incrementally reduced. “Every time a new layer is added, it shrinks the working forest without any clear strategy for the communities left behind,” he said. He said forest policy should support communities, not just environmental goals. “Forests are meant to be used, not just looked at,” he said.

On Indigenous relations, Rustad struck a tone that blended support for increased economic participation with criticism of current models of consultation. “We need to move from consultation to partnership,” he said. He acknowledged that First Nations must be full participants in the forest economy but argued that current approaches are bureaucratic and unclear. “Everyone wants certainty,” he said. “That includes Indigenous nations, tenure holders, and investors.”

He also voiced concerns that forest planning is becoming disconnected from local communities. Rustad proposed giving regional offices and communities greater authority to influence land use decisions, such as permitting, timber allocation, and harvest planning. “Let’s empower the people who actually live and work in these forests,” he said. “People feel like decisions are being made in Victoria, not in Vanderhoof or Port Alberni,” he said. He proposed greater regional authority over land use and forestry decisions, including strengthened roles for community forests and regional advisory councils.

Turning to tenure, Rustad suggested reforms to encourage investment and fibre utilization. He said tenure holders should be evaluated not only by how much timber they harvest, but by how efficiently and responsibly they do it. That includes value recovery, investment in technology, Indigenous partnerships, and support for local jobs. “We need to align tenure with outcomes. And that includes value-added, not just volume.”

The Opposition Leader closed his remarks by framing the forest sector as a test of political will. “This is a moment of choice,” he said. “We either rebuild our forest sector, or we let it continue to decline.” He pledged that under a Conservative government, forestry would return to the top of the policy agenda. “We’re going to stop managing for decline,” he said. “And start managing for growth.”