BC Forestry Report Card: The NDP Earns a D

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An Editorial Opinion – Right From The Stump, October 15, 2026

A provincial election has been called two years ahead of schedule and just a few days after the Premier met with forest industry groups that were jointly asking for a public Forest Sector Crisis Action Plan within 30-days to ward off a collapse of the sector.

As a newsletter tracking how government policy affects the BC forest industry, a provincial election is the ideal time to assess the governing political party’s performance against its campaign promises. Two years is a short period for such an assessment, but the timing of the snap election was not up to me.

The following is a report card on the BC NDP’s progress on its 2024 election commitments.

The View From The Stump’s letter grade key is described below:

A…Completed the election platform commitment

B…Made good progress towards completing the commitment

C…Progress made, but still more work to do complete the commitment

D…Incomplete, started to work on it, but the vast majority of work still needed is outstanding

F…Did not meet objective, went the opposite direction or did not start

At the Truck Loggers Association’s Convention in January 2026, the Minister of Forests was asked to provide a self-assessment of his government’s performance one year into its current mandate. In a moment of candour, the minister offered a grade of “incomplete,” noting that there was more to come.

Coincidentally, nine months later, the View From The Stump’s own assessment, conducted as objectively as possible, arrived at the similar grade, a “D” for incomplete.

Would the NDP’s score have improved with more time? We will never know. To be frank though, another two years without a major course correction would not have changed the grade or outcome significantly.

A special mention is warranted. While the Premier and his NDP caucus were largely unsuccessful in delivering on their forest-sector promises, Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar deserves recognition for setting the bar high in using social media to promote and defend the sector.

Given an overall report card grade of D (some have suggested that is too generous of a grade) on BC’s forest sector, I believe a serious parent-teacher meeting is needed.

It is one thing to assign fair, albeit subjective, letter grades. It is another to measure the impact of government decisions through a quantitative lens. Unfortunately for the BC NDP, the numbers do not tell a positive story. The data is hard to refute and is available to View From The Stump subscribers in the October 2026 newsletter just published.

A clinical assessment would conclude that the NDP’s approach to forest policy and industry transformation failed over the last decade because it placed government at the centre of the transformation process. In doing so, it cast industry as an adversary rather than a partner, undermining the very investment and innovation needed to achieve its objectives.

External factors, such as markets, can be challenging, but businesses are capable of navigating them. What is more difficult is making investment decisions when there is uncertainty about the long-term reliability of fibre supply.

It is critical to recognize that the forest industry is more than an economic engine. It also can be a key partner in providing the capacity to improve wildfire resiliency.

My hope is a new government recognizes this evolution in forestry. Rather than viewing industry as a problem to be managed, it should be used as a tool to achieve government’s objectives. When policy changes are necessary, they should be designed to build confidence and enhance certainty.

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

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