The Canadian Wood Council announced the winners of its 2026 Wood Design & Building Awards, recognizing 27 projects. In related news: the Softwood Lumber Board, US Endowment (and others) launch a Mass Timber Accelerator in Washington DC; Brooklyn, New York’s new library will feature mass timber; Australia’s tallest timber commercial building (15-storey) receives approval; South Korea unveils a timber apartment test building; and Queen’s University researchers assess the strength of curved glulam beams.
In Business news: ERA’s Kevin Mason says global housing weakness is weighing on wood products; Canada’s trade options remain uncertain following the midterms; an NAHB webinar will assess what the blue-wave means for housing; US forestry advocates press Congress to advance legislation; Cascades reports Q3 earnings of $30M; Louisiana-Pacific reports net income of $23M; and Canada’s trade surplus widens. Meanwhile: West Vancouver (posthumously) honours forester Hugh Hamilton; Unifor calls for action on BC’s forestry crisis; and curfews are in place after fatal grizzly attach near Bella Coola, BC.
Finally, UBC Forestry Dean Rob Kozak is honoured in Hungary on the 70th anniversary of the Sopron exodus.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
Donald Trump was rebuked by tariff-weary voters in midterm elections, but one of the US president’s main targets — Canada — still faces a dilemma about what to do next. The trade war became a problem for Republicans in northern battleground states. …Late in the election campaign, Trump said several times that he expected to have a deal with Canada soon to reduce trade frictions. …With Democrats set to take control of the House and Senate, Trump’s ability to pass laws and appointments will be constrained. But he can continue to sidestep Congress and issue executive orders. …House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries promised the Democrats would pass a bill to “stop the stupid Trump tariffs jacking up prices on Americans.” But Trump has the power to veto such legislation. … “I don’t think they’re prepared to concede too much on the core issue,” said Barry Appleton, of the New York Law School Center for International Law.
Canada’s month-over-month trade surplus with the United States widened to $12.3 billion in September from $12.1 billion, with exports slightly increasing after the implementation of Section 338 tariffs in late August. Exports to the U.S. rose 0.7 per cent in September, mainly due to higher shipments of unwrought gold and crude oil, according to Statistics Canada. Imports from the U.S. increased 0.4 per cent due to higher shipments of processing units. …Canada reported the largest trade surplus in four years, which widened to $5.4 billion in September from $5 billion in August. Total exports increased 0.2 per cent month over month in September after increasing 3.2 per cent in August, mainly due to higher shipments of energy products, which rose 8.2 per cent. But declines were reported in eight of the 11 product sections. …In real, or volume, terms, exports were down four per cent in September.
Curved glued-laminated (glulam) timber beams have been used in practice as structural components in roof systems and bridges, capitalizing on the architectural freedom of using wood as a building material. Despite their use in practice, there is limited experimental data on the structural behavior of curved glulam beams, both during fabrication and at their ultimate limit state. …Results of the study demonstrate that a complex state of strain, and thus stress, exists in a curved glulam beam after fabrication through mechanical bending of the laminations. Under structural loading, the studied beams exhibited a range of failure modes, which depended on the beam radius, including flexural failure in tension, shear failure, and radial tension failure. The experimental results are also compared with North American wood design standards, and the results suggest that these standards can predict the strength of the curved glulam beams tested in this study to within 5% of their ultimate load-carrying capacity.
This year, the House of Representatives passed the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026, also known as the farm bill, which contains a strong forestry title to address the many issues before our national forests and non-federal forestlands. …The bipartisan Wildfire Reduction Market Expansion Act will help modernize the Renewable Fuel Standard’s definition of renewable biomass to include more of the low-value woody material generated through forest management. …The bipartisan Save America’s Family Forests Act will help landowners reinvest sooner, recognizing that the cost of establishing a forest comes decades before the income from harvesting it. …The House Committee on Agriculture has helped lay the foundation. …An end-of-year legislative package offers an opportunity to build on this progress and give landowners the tools to remain productive, rather than forcing the country to watch a critical industry struggle for lack of governmental support.
