The closure of Canfor sawmills in Vanderhoof and Fort St. John and the loss of 500 jobs in those communities is terrible news, but not surprising news.
We’ve known for years that BC’s forest industry is in serious trouble. The most recently announced U.S. tariffs aren’t helping.
For years, under first the BC Liberals and then the NDP, the approach has been to kick the can down the road when it comes to addressing the ground-level challenges facing the forestry industry. Companies keep harvesting, milling and shipping until the ledger turns red (or looks like it might), and then the saws are unplugged, the mills close and people lose their jobs.
It didn’t have to be this way. Warning signs have been clear since the pine beetle attacked BC forests 20 years ago. While it was a crisis, it led to a major logging boom as salvage operations began. Crews started harvesting the trees the beetles had killed, an operation that saw huge growth in the industry and money being made across the board. Things looked OK.
But once those dead trees had been turned into cash, experts warned at the time, the province needed a long-term plan to deal with the eventual collapse of the industry. That plan never came, and here we are in that collapse. The industry has about half the jobs it did 25 years ago. It’s failing.
This is odd, considering we’ve had an NDP government in power since 2017. Left and centre-left political ideology usually embraces the opposite of kicking the can down the road. Climate change mandates, carbon taxes and the move to renewable energy is usually sold on the idea that we’re taking on tough challenges (and higher expenses) now in order to protect the planet for future generations.
An example is the NDP’s reasoning for its energy and climate policies. The move away from natural gas, the shift from gas-powered to electric vehicles and the end of single-use plastics like grocery bags has been marketed to the electorate as being not about today, but about the future.
But here’s a situation where the future was clear and little was done to stop a crisis from happening.
What could have been done? The province took several steps, like pushing made-in-BC wood products. And there’s this, from the province, which doesn’t really say much: “We are tapping into the knowledge and expertise of forest and ecosystem experts, First Nations, forest communities and others to collaboratively protect forests health across the province and preserve the value that only forests can provide.”
Unfortunately, for all these vision board concepts, the industry is run by big logging corporations, and they have a bottom line to meet. That’s the way business works. NDP governments, however, hesitate to support large corporations on ideological grounds. We’ve seen struggling sectors come back to life after being bailed out by government. The Ontario automotive industry comes immediately to mind. Controversial? At the time, yes. Successful? Also yes. People are working steady, high-paying jobs again.
The province does contribute to the forestry industry, but it’s focused more on the new approaches mentioned earlier. One example from the government: “Through the $180-million BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund, the province has committed as much as $70.3 million to forest-sector transition and diversification across 50 projects, which will create and sustain more than 2,500 jobs. Investments are focused on boosting high-quality, made-in-B.C. wood-product lines that create more sustainable jobs for every tree harvested.”
That doesn’t do much good if fewer trees are being harvested. Had it been started 20 years ago, we might be having a different conversation today. But it wasn’t.
We’re not calling for an immediate bailout, but it is something that should be studied. The next government must take a closer look at what can be done to revive and grow the forestry sector. BC depends on it.
