Premier David Eby delivered the closing luncheon keynote at the 2026 COFI Convention on Friday, addressing a packed room of delegates and committing to a range of actions on fibre access, market diversification, value-added manufacturing, and reconciliation. The session, moderated by COFI President and CEO Kim Haakstad, included a substantive question-and-answer period. Eby opened by acknowledging both the challenges facing the sector and the role provincial policy has played in them — including restrictions around old growth and other policies that he said the government needs to do a better job of consolidating to ensure the fibre supply industry requires can actually be delivered. He described the conference theme of “Forestry is a Solution” as accurate across multiple dimensions — economic, environmental, and community — and said the province is committed to ensuring a sustainable forest sector for the long term.
On tariffs, Eby said the US cannot produce enough wood to meet its own domestic demand and has been increasing imports from Europe and Russia to fill that gap — at higher cost to American consumers and at the expense of housing affordability. He said the approximately $8 billion in softwood lumber duties held in trust by the US Treasury should be deployed to develop the sector on both sides of the border, and that BC has been working to increase federal awareness of the industry’s national importance. He said forestry is bigger than steel and bigger than auto parts in terms of impact on Canadian GDP and employment, and that BC’s expectation is that the federal government should make resolving the softwood lumber dispute a core priority in its broader trade negotiations with the United States.
On market diversification, Eby said he will be visiting China soon with forest products as a key promotional focus, and that a recent India trade mission included discussions with the Indian government about eliminating the 10% tariff on Canadian lumber. He said Indian buyers indicated that tariff reduction would have a material impact on their import volumes, and that there is an opportunity to increase demand through architecture and design education in India. He said Forestry Innovation Investment (FII) has been strengthened significantly since moving from the Ministry of Jobs to the Ministry of Forests, where it now has the profile and support to advance market development in the UK, India, and other markets.
On fibre access and the working forest model, Eby said predictability is the core ask he has heard from industry and that the government is preparing to deliver it through a working forest model — designated areas where forest development for economic purposes is certain, alongside clearly protected areas for watersheds and sensitive ecosystems. He said the goal is to move past a permit-by-permit regime to one where companies know with certainty the volume of wood available to them. He pointed to the Nimpkish Valley Forest Landscape Plan as an example of what the model can deliver: an increase in actual harvest levels, long-term predictability for industry and forestry families, and protection of key community values including water. On BC Timber Sales, he said the first tranche of legislative changes through Bill 14 is expected to unlock approximately one million additional cubic metres, and that further work with industry on BCTS reform is coming.
On value-added manufacturing, Eby said the province has committed over $90 million through the BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund to 76 different value-added forestry projects, protecting or creating approximately 3,500 jobs and leveraging more than $530 million in capital investment. He cited specific investments including a tenure transfer tied to a Gorman Group investment, the awarding of undercut to Box Lake Lumber in Nakusp, and provincial support for Western Forest Products to install two new continuous dry kilns.
Turning to reconciliation and DRIPA, Eby acknowledged the forestry sector’s leadership in building First Nations partnerships long before the Declaration Act existed, and described the Act as having been designed to provide structured, measured, and predictable progress on rights and title. He said a Court of Appeal decision in the Gitxaała case has interpreted the Act as bringing the entirety of its provisions into BC law immediately — which he said was never the intention and creates unworkable uncertainty for business. The government’s response, he said, is to put select sections of the Act on hold while seeking clarity from the Supreme Court of Canada, describing this as the least invasive step available. He was clear that repealing the Act is not an option, as it underpins billions of dollars of investment in the province. On the Cowichan decision involving private property, he said the province and Cowichan First Nation have issued a joint statement confirming that homes and businesses are not under threat while the case is appealed.
In the Q&A, Haakstad opened with the Nootka Island decision — in which a court found BC laws no longer apply in that area — and asked what it means for the Path to 45 initiative and for land base certainty. Eby said the Nootka decision underlines why the province pursues negotiated agreements with First Nations rather than waiting for court outcomes, and that the path forward will require sitting down with the First Nation to find workable arrangements, as has been the case in other title decisions. Haakstad added that compensation for companies with tenure in affected areas is a critical issue that needs to be addressed.
On the gap between the Path to 45 target and the budget projection of 29 million cubic metres, Eby said the budget reflects the most pessimistic revenue projection, that getting to 45 has been designated a major project within government giving the minister priority access to legislative drafting and policy resources, and that losses from wildfire and the end of beetle kill salvage are the structural explanation for the gap. Haakstad noted that COFI is not certain the land base currently supports the 45 million cubic metre target, and pointed to cut block level constraints — where managing multiple values has made it increasingly difficult to find enough operable area in any given region — as a concern that goes beyond permitting reform.
On BC’s competitive position and the pace of harvest decline, Haakstad noted that other jurisdictions have not seen the same rate of decline as BC, suggesting provincial policy as a contributing factor. Eby did not dismiss the province’s responsibility — he said explicitly that government has important work to do on permitting, the working forest model, and reducing bureaucratic barriers — but he offered context that the structural factors driving BC’s decline are significant and not entirely policy-driven. The end of the beetle kill salvage cycle represented a major step-down in available fibre after years of elevated harvest levels, and three of BC’s five worst wildfire seasons have occurred in the last five years, removing a substantial portion of the province’s forest base. He also noted that the challenges are not unique to BC — pointing to significant mill closures, pulp mill shutdowns, and tens of thousands of jobs lost in the US South due to low lumber prices and the collapse of chip markets as pulp mills have closed. He said none of this takes the provincial government off the hook, but that the full picture matters in understanding the scale of the challenge.
On regulatory costs, Haakstad acknowledged a recent order-in-council reducing the carbon price applied to lime kiln emissions at pulp mills as the result of more than two years of COFI advocacy, noting that lime kilns enable chemical reuse and that applying carbon pricing where it cannot achieve any policy goal serves no purpose. Eby said the change reflects the government’s commitment to working with industry to bring down costs where the policy rationale does not hold, and said that work will continue.
On inter-ministry alignment, Eby acknowledged that having separate ministries creates gaps at their borders and that decisions made in other ministries can unintentionally undermine the Ministry of Forests. He said it is important for industry to flag inter-ministry friction so his office can work with deputies to address it. Haakstad said that industry needs to be in the room as those decisions are being made — not only to flag problems after the fact but to ensure the impacts on the sector are understood before decisions are taken.
On community forests, Eby confirmed that expanding community forests is in Minister Parmar’s mandate letter and that he has the Premier’s full support to deliver on that commitment, describing them as an important source of both local government revenue and community employment.
Asked directly what the industry should measure the government against at next year’s convention, Eby identified three areas: full implementation of the BCTS review recommendations and advancement of the working forest model toward a post-permit fibre access regime; progress on trade diversification with India, China, the UK, and other Asian markets; and success in convincing the federal government to prioritize softwood lumber as a key sector to be resolved in CUSMA negotiations — unlocking the duties held in trust that could support sector development on both sides of the border.
Drafted with the assistance of digital tools to streamline the process.