The B.C. government will use its procurement powers on large public works projects, like the new $1.9 billion St. Paul’s Hospital, to promote mass timber products, and tackle a shrinking timber supply, stumpage rates and other issues facing the B.C. forestry industry with a new renewal initiative.
Premier John Horgan told delegates at the Council of Forest Industries (COFI) convention in Vancouver Friday, April 4, that his government will try to help the industry do more with less.
The Mountain pine beetle reduced the annual allowable cut by about half in B.C.’s interior, and wildfires in the last couple of years have taken another 2 million hectares.
Meanwhile, however, the demand for lumber and other woods products is high in the American and Asian markets. Horgan suggested the industry needs to adapt in order to get more value out of less timber.
One high value-added approach is mass timber products, like cross-laminated timber (CLT). One B.C. company, Structurlam, is already doing well in that market, and last month, Kalesnikoff Lumber announced plans to invest $35 million in a new CLT and glulam manufacturing plant in Castelgar.
In order promote more domestic use of mass timber products, the provincial government recently announced it is adopting provincial building code standards that will allow for buildings up to 12 storeys to be built with wood.
On Friday, Horgan announced that the government will also use its procurement powers to encourage the use of these products in major public works projects, like the new St. Paul’s Hospital, and a rebuild of the Royal BC Museum in Victoria.
Horgan’s government recently announced its Coast Forest Sector Revitalization strategy, which addresses challenges faced by the coastal forest sector. Among other things, the plan calls for a reduction in raw log exports and requires wood waste left after logging to be cleaned up and made available for pulp mills.
Horgan’s government is now launching a similar renewal strategy for the interior forest industry, which has a whole different set of problems. It plans to assemble consultation tables for each of the 27 timber supply areas (TSA) in the interior, with stakeholders to include forest company executives, First Nations, local mayor and unions.
Horgan has sent out letters to the CEOs of all B.C. lumber companies asking them to join the tables to try to come up with solutions to the challenges facing them in their particular TSAs.
“The challenges (for the interior) are not new but they are stark, and they are significant,” Horgan said.
“Fibre costs are going up, lumber prices are going down, timber supply is declining, and they’re all happening at the same time. Layer over top of that challenges of softwood lumber (duties), low dollar, and we have serious challenges in the interior.”
Horgan noted that when the industry was faced with the challenge of declining demand in the U.S., as well as American softwood lumber duties, efforts by government and industry to diversify markets resulted in China becoming a new market now worth $4.2 billion.
The big challenge, now, though, is a lack of raw timber supply.
Horgan urged forest sector industry CEOs to join the consultation tables that will be struck for each TSA in the interior.
“If there are solutions in this room, we need to have them at a table where they can be implemented,” Horgan said.
He said the discussion will take place “TSA by TSA” because the challenges and solutions may be different for each region.
One new challenge for the interior sector is a new caribou recovery plan. To address falling caribou populations in the Peace River region, the federal and provincial governments have developed draft plans that will result in a moratorium on industrial activities in critical caribou habitat areas.
“I believe the biggest impact will be on forestry,” Horgan said. “And we’re going to do our level best to reduce that impact.”
