There has been a steady pace of curtailment announcements by BC forest products manufacturers. Affected sawmills and pulp mills have shared a consistent reason for their downtime. Lumber producers have said there is a lack of economically available log supply and market conditions. Pulp producers have cited the lack of economically available residual fibre supply. Based on the curtailments made public, over 30% of the BC interior’s sawmilling capacity is currently affected [and] …decreased lumber production means fewer residual chips for pulp mills. …Since September 2021, an estimated 41% of BC’s pulp and paper capacity (eight mills) have been affected by fibre availability issues and have taken or are planning some form of downtime/shut down. This amount of lumber and pulp capacity affected in such a short time frame seems unprecedented. 

There are enormous negative pressures on the BC interior timber supply. Undoubtedly the harvest is reflecting the negative impacts from various well-known factors such as the killed pine from mountain pine beetle, burnt timber from wildfires and moratoriums on logging due to mountain caribou. While such factors make for a convenient narrative to assign blame for the current crisis… the dramatic drop in BC Interior’s crown timber harvest specific to 2022 would appear to be more to do with policy decisions the NDP government made. In fact, 61% of the interior’s decrease in crown harvest came from a 41% reduction in the BC Timber Sales (BCTS) harvest. …No other region in North America has experienced such a wave of curtailments in the last six months. …The Premier announced a $90 million BC fund aimed at supporting investment and innovation. That’s nice but misses the mark on the industry’s needs. …Time for the NDP government to take a hard look in the mirror and own its culpability.