BC Forest Industry Transformation Without A Plan Is Just Contraction

11 minutes ago

4 min read

An Editorial Opinion – Right From The Stump, September 16, 2026

What does British Columbia's Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar mean when he talks about forest industry transformation? I am asking for a friend—or two—or, more accurately, the entire forest industry.

Industry transformation is a core theme of the NDP government’s forest sector agenda—part of what it was elected to address in 2017 and later formalized in the 2021 intentions paper, Modernizing Forest Policy in British Columbia. It is clear that transformation is meant to include more value-added wood products manufacturing, partly to reduce reliance on commodity lumber markets in the U.S. and move away from boom-and-bust cycles. Those are worthy broad objectives but impractical. And there is no concrete plan. Frustratingly, the details of this industry transformation have never been publicly outlined.

Whether willing to participate or not, one would think it is essential that BC’s forest industry understand what the governing party wants to achieve through industry transformation. An annual timber harvest target of 45 million m³ was set, but that was in response to the overshoot in reduced harvesting. Since this harvest target was made, the harvest has actually decreased, down 4% year-to-date.

Investors, owners, industry leaders, and workers cannot make informed decisions without understanding what industry transformation actually means. Without a clear explanation from the Premier and his Minister, the industry is left to react transformation by the results so far.

By my analysis, approximately 42 per cent of the softwood lumber production capacity operating in this province in 2019 has since been indefinitely curtailed, indefinitely closed, or permanently closed. Of the 42 affected sawmills:

· 22 are permanent sawmill closures

· 4 sawmills have permanently reduced shifts

· 10 are indefinite sawmill closures

· 5 are indefinite sawmill production reductions

· 1 sawmill closed but restarted under a new owner

To be fair, some of these closures stemmed from a structural reduction in timber supply, and a few sawmills may resume production under the right circumstances. But for the vast majority, decisions to reduce production also reflected concerns about the availability of economically viable fibre that has increasinglybecome encumbered, in one way or another, by government decisions.

So, 42 sawmills have experienced some form of reduced production or closed. Is this what the Minister means by industry transformation?

What about the 54 per cent, or 3.1 million tonne reduction in pulp and paper mill capacity since 2020? That includes Millar Western’s temporary curtailment of Quesnel River Pulp and Domtar’s pending indefinite closure of their Howe Sound pulp mill. Is this industry transformation?

Add two or three closed pellet mills, a few other wood product manufacturers, and the list is a shocking transformation.

The corresponding 47% decrease in the provincial Crown harvest is equally telling...

Is this what the envisioned industry transformation looks like? How many workers need to lose their employment in the forest sector?

If industry transformation means industry contraction, then it has been a glowing success so far. One of the biggest ironies of all this is the desire to increase value-added manufacturing cannot scale without primary manufacturers converting logs into products like lumber or veneer that can be used to then make value-added products. Except those primary manufacturers are the ones closing down.

The evidence suggests the boom-and-bust cycle has become one long bust, lasting almost a decade under the guise of industry transformation. External pressures, including the trade war with the United States, are real. The BC forest sector’s decline predated much of the latest trade escalation.

As mayors and community leaders meet with Ministry of Forest officials this week at UBCM, they should ask plainly: what is meant by industry transformation? Do not accept political buzzwords such as “more value-added” and “more value, or more jobs from every tree harvested”. So far, those phrases have meant little—and without specifics, they will continue to mean little.

Ask what it means for your town or city. Ask for measurable policy outcomes – harvest levels, jobs retained, mill retentions (like critical infrastructure such pulp mills), the definition of value-added manufacturing, or the proportion of timber to be converted to value-added. Ask what the Premier and Minister really want and how they expect to achieve it.

This note may read negative to some, but I write it with the view that if the Premier and Minister could clearly explain what they mean by industry transformation—not in lofty visions and values, but in measurable, specific detail and actions—it would help them succeed. Industry cannot support transformation if it does not know government’s true

intentions or what transformation is supposed to be.

Industry leaders recently sent a joint letter to the Premier warning that industry is at a breaking point and asking for an emergency meeting to address the crisis. Maybe the discussion should not be industry conveying its concerns and needs, but rather the Premier and Minister cutting to the chase on what they mean by industry transformation. The government keeps invoking transformation, yet the observable result of the last decade have been contraction—and neither communities nor industry know where the government’s goalposts are.

More opinion and industry analysis will be included in the October 2026 View From The Stump newsletter.

To read more from Right From The Stump posts, CLICK HERE

To receive notification of blog and newsletter publications, provide your email CLICK HERE