Fraserview Cedar is set to acquire one of San Group’s Port Alberni mills—pending court approval. In other news: West Fraser declared a dividend; Timberlab sees opportunity amid chaos; BC Premier Eby touts Asia trade mission agreements; Trump threatened unilateral tariffs (again); US Homebuilders want action on affordability; and Japan sees economic recovery. Meanwhile, FPAC’s Derek Nighbor speaks to forestry benefits; WPAC to host a safe pellet storage workshop; and the Ontario Woodlot Association has a new president.
In Forestry/Wildfire news: US Senator Murray presses the US Forest Chief on wildfire preparedness; Robert Chaney on the US plan to centralize the fire service; Squamish, BC declares a state of emergency; Saskatchewan burns through 40 years of timber; Idaho sends firefighter crews to BC; the EU forest fire funds are poorly targeted; and new maps reveal opportunities for global reforestation.
Finally, applications are open for SFI/Project Learning Tree Canada’s Green Mentor Program.
Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog News Editor
About 100 unionized forestry workers are on the picket line at operations on the mid and north Island, claiming their employer wants to contract out their work. United Steelworkers Local 1-1937 went on strike June 6, citing “significant concessions” demanded by La-kwa sa muqw Forestry Limited Partnership (LKSM Forestry). LKSM Forestry is the former Western Forest Products Mid-Island Forest operation now jointly owned by four First Nations of the Nanwakolas Council — the Tlowitsis, We Wai Kai, Wei Wai Kum and K’ómoks First Nations — as well as Western Forest Products, which still owns the majority of the company. The Steelworkers union said one of the main concessions LKSM is demanding is the use of non-union contractors to do work currently done by union members on sites. That includes jobs performed by union members working for contractors on sites. …The union said it remains open to talks with the company that focus on resolving the outstanding issues.
The major assets of the beleaguered San Group are under contract to be sold, awaiting only court approval. The monitor overseeing the credit-protection process has applied to the courts for approval of the sale. A court date is set for this week. …The largest creditors support the sales, despite the fact “they will suffer a significant shortfall on their debt.” The main properties in question are the Coulson manufacturing sawmills and San Group’s value-added facility in Port Alberni. There is also a mill in Langley and an adjacent agricultural parcel. The Surrey-based Fraserview Cedar has agreed to buy the Coulson facility in Port Alberni. The group has said it expects to have the mill up and running this year if the deal closes. A numbered BC company has entered into an agreement to buy the value-added facility. The buyers will lease the site to Ucluelet-based IGV Housing, which specializes in manufacturing scalable housing that combines pre-fab and on-site processes.
VANCOUVER, BC
A final tally of which Ontario municipalities hit their housing targets and how many fell short last year has been finished since mid-February, according to government documents obtained, despite the province refusing to release the data for months. For the past two years, the Ford government has set targets for new homes in towns and cities, promising them extra cash if they meet those goals. The numbers Ontario uses to assess whether or not cities have hit their goals are made up of new homes, long-term care beds and additional units like basements or garden suites. The government set up a website to show which cities had hit their goals. Around October 2024, however, with housing starts across the province stuttering, the government stopped updating the tracker. …While the tracker has appeared abandoned for close to half a year, the government has had “finalized” data for months.
Stocks wavered Thursday as President Trump threatened setting unilateral tariffs on trading partners in two weeks. The S&P 500 added 0.2%, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.1%. …Wall Street awaits further developments on trade policy, especially between the U.S. and China, as talks between the two countries have been a focal point this week. Trump said Wednesday he would be willing to extend a July 8 deadline for finishing trade talks with countries before higher US levies take effect, but that the extensions may not be necessary. …“We still think the primary driver for market direction and to break out to all-time highs would be some resolution for tariffs and how they interlink with the budget and the Fed. And we see a lot of headlines about negotiations or pauses or frameworks, but we still haven’t seen a single signed trade deal,” said Tom Hainlin at U.S. Bank Asset Management Group.
Japan’s government remains cautiously optimistic, sticking to its long-held conviction that the economy should be able to weather both external shocks on already sluggish growth and a cost-led surge in domestic inflation, repeating it is expected to stay on a “modest recovery” track. In its monthly report for June released Wednesday by the Cabinet Office, less than three weeks after the prior report, the government repeated that the economy is “recovering at a moderate pace but confronted by the uncertainty arising from the US trade policy.” Tokyo appears to have brought forward the release of its monthly report by about two weeks so that it could officially update the status of Japan’s economy before the leaders of the Group of Seven major nations gather for their annual summit at Kananaskis in the Canadian province of Alberta from June 15 to June 17. 
Amid the chaos of tariffs and economic uncertainty, Chris Evans is feeling deja vu with regards to the construction supply chain. Evans, the president of Swinerton-owned mass timber firm Timberlab, has helped the company through the process of building up a domestic supply chain. Evans said the company noted a lack of domestic supply, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. That led company leaders, in 2021, to work toward helping the firm become more vertically integrated, with its own fabrication facilities and domestic supply, and a sawmill coming online in 2027. Timberlab brought its first fabrication facility online in 2020 and a second in 2022, employing computer numerical control fabrication techniques to create cross-laminated timber and glulam, critical mass timber components.
As wildfires continue to sweep across northern Saskatchewan, the toll is mounting. Not just in evacuations and lost homes, but long-term damage to the province’s forest industry. Carl Neggers, CEO of Forest Saskatchewan, says two of the largest fires, the Shoe Fire and the Ditch, have scorched 900,000 hectares of forest, an area roughly 40 times the size of Saskatoon. According to Neggers, “Saskatchewan’s forestry sector harvest around 23,000 hectares per year. That means this years wildfires have destroyed nearly 40 years of commercial timber.” “We support 12,000 jobs in this province through forestry” Neggers said in a June 9 interview on the Evan Bray Show. “If it impedes allocation or limits access to alternative timber zones, that puts our workforce and mills at risk.” The damage, he says, extends well beyond the logging industry. Forest in the commercial zone are also critical for recreation, traditional land use and Indigenous communities.
At the 2025 Council of Forest Industries (COFI) Convention in Prince George, the message coming from the stage was clear and consistent: British Columbia’s forestry sector, though challenged, was on the cusp of transformation. Words like resilience, partnership, and innovation echoed across the sessions. COFI’s President and CEO, Kim Haakstad, struck a hopeful tone in her remarks: “The forest sector is facing unprecedented challenges—but with collaboration and innovation, there is a path forward.” …Seven weeks later, I attended the Canada North Resources Expo, in Prince George. The contrast couldn’t have been more striking. This show, which typically draws the biggest names in logging and roadbuilding equipment, felt subdued. Gone were the sprawling displays from Caterpillar, Komatsu, Hitachi, Volvo, John Deere, and XCMG. These are big players – their absence was impossible to miss. …At COFI, we heard big ideas. At the Resource Expo, we saw who’s showing up—and who isn’t.
European funds to prevent forest fires have been poorly targeted and sometimes distributed in a hurry, according to a report from the EU’s spending watchdog. The number of forest fires in EU countries has increased dramatically over the last two decades as the climate crisis fuels ever bigger conflagrations. An area twice the size of Luxembourg has been consumed by flames in an average recent year, killing people, destroying homes and wildlife and sending megatonnes of planet-heating emissions into the air. The European court of auditors praised the decision to devote more money to preventing fires but said European-funded projects were not always spent where they could make the biggest difference. In Greece, authorities were using a map drawn up in 1980 to assess the risk of forest fires. In Portugal, one area selected as a priority for funds contained a zone that was underwater due to a recently built dam.
High winds fanned a wildfire threatening Squamish as some residents remained on evacuation alert and under a heavy blanket of smoke. On Wednesday evening, the B.C. Wildfire Service had mapped the Dryden Creek fire at about 54 hectares, or about a half-square kilometre, up from five hectares two days ago. The District of Squamish said daytime winds have contributed to the fire’s size, pushing it further north away from properties. “Existing containment lines on the southern flank are not currently threatened,” said the district in an update Wednesday evening. Aaron Foote, chief of Squamish Fire Rescue, said the fire is within 40 metres of some homes as debris from burning trees falls near properties, but added that the properties were not at risk. He said debris has been rolling down steep hillsides as local firefighters battle the blaze that’s looming over the community, next to the Sea to Sky Highway.