Daily Archives: June 17, 2019

Canfor is shutting down their mill in Vavenby. It’s terrible for the whole region’s economy and will make it an even poorer place. It will mean smaller returns for the Valemount Community Forest and it will hurt local operators. But the closure has the potential to devastate Vavenby and Clearwater. It reminds me of the shutdown of Valemount’s mill in 2006. …My advice to the community of Clearwater is simple. Don’t let them dismantle the mill. Pay union employees to guard it for the next five years. Don’t let Interfor remove a stick of wood for the next five years. You can bet your bottom dollar that the markets for softwood lumber will pick up again, but they won’t likely pick up enough to build a whole new mill from scratch. The province has just enacted Bill 22 that gives them some control in these situations. But the province needs to learn to play hard ball. And quick.

With the city surrounded by close to 90 per cent private forest land, and the recent issue of logging around Cottonwood Lake, the idea of how to regulate those tracts of land is imperative. For years wildfire mitigation and forest fuel treatment have been complicated around Nelson due to the large amount of private forest land bordering it. There is no legislation to compel private forest land owners to do anything on their land that is not in their own self interest, or will turn them a profit. Until now. People can provide input until July 9 on a program to help ensure the sustainable management of private forests in the West Kootenay — locally and around Cottonwood Lake — as well as across the province. …about 818,000 hectares [of private land in BC] — primarily located on southern Vancouver Island and the Kootenays — are managed as part of the Private Managed Forest Land Program and regulated under the Private Managed Forest Land Actand regulations. 

A pulp mill and wood products mill in northeastern B.C. are the latest to feel the fallout from weaker lumber markets and the province’s pine beetle infestation. Canfor Pulp says its Taylor operation will close for five weeks beginning June 29, while Louisiana-Pacific’s Peace Valley OSB mill in Fort St. John closes indefinitely on August 9. Over the last several weeks, the Norbord mill in 100 Mile House and Tolko mill in Quesnel both announced closures in August, while shifts have already been cut in half at the Aspen Planers mill in Merritt, and Tolko reduces shifts by 50 per cent at its Kelowna mill next month. Canfor says all its sawmills except for the one north of Creston B.C. will suspend operations for at least two weeks, and up to a month at two northern locations starting Monday, while the Vavenby sawmill north of Kamloops closes permanently in July.

Clearwater’s major employer, Canfor has announced they are closing their Vavenby mill and selling their forest license to Interfor Corporation for $60 million, but new legislation means the sale of a forest license is no longer strictly a matter between two corporations. Forest Minister Doug Donaldson says new legislation passed a couple of weeks ago brings up much more public oversight into the sale of the public asset. “They must come to us with a proposal to demonstrate how [the sale] is in the public interest,” Donaldson said in an interview with the Goat. He said he has not seen a proposal yet from Interfor. …Donaldson said changes in forestry legislation made by the BC Liberals in 2003 meant that government had very little say regarding the transfer of licenses. “Now we have another tool,” he said. “It’s just one of the things we have done to increase our oversight over the public resource.”

The chief of the Simpcw First Nation in the North Thompson Valley is unhappy with the recent announcement that the Canfor sawmill in Vavenby would be closing and says local First Nations were not part of the decision making process. …Chief Shelly Loring told Daybreak Kamloops host Shelley Joyce that she and her people were shocked… adding that they found out about the mill closure because of a news story; they were not contacted about it in advance. …Simpcw Resources Group Ltd. had been in discussions with Canfor about a desire to acquire more licences within its territory. …If the Simpcw First Nation was able to take over some or all of the land tenure, they would continue logging while taking into consideration wildlife protection and the environmental impacts of their actions.

A sawmill in McBride, B.C., that shutdown 13 years ago is getting a new life as a wood pellet plant. Boreal BioEnergy, a B.C.-based forestry company, has purchased the site and started building the new plant in the community about 200 kilometres southeast of Prince George in the central Interior. “We’re well into our engineering and we’re hoping to start our civil works this fall,” company CEO Jason Janus told Daybreak North host Carolina de Ryk. Construction is expected to start early next year and the plant will begin operations in late 2020. Once it’s fully operational, it will produce up to 250,000 tonnes of black pellets each year, creating 50 to 60 jobs for the region. The plant’s first shipment of wood pellets is scheduled to arrive in Japan in 2021.

Andrew Wilkinson

In the past few weeks we’ve seen shift curtailments, mill slowdowns, and complete shutdowns across the province. The fact that Canfor – one of the companies to announce cutbacks – is only curtailing its operations in B.C., not in Alberta or any U.S. state, should be a red flag for Premier John Horgan. Couple that with the fact that NDP policies are being imposed on forestry-dependent communities without consultation and that the industry lost 6,600 jobs between 2017 and 2018, and it’s hard to deny that B.C. is in a crisis. As recent weeks have shown, 2019 is shaping up to be even worse. Horgan needs to immediately start working with the forestry communities that are paying the price for his government’s irresponsible policies. I’ve written him a letter asking for him to take action, starting now.

For decades, it was said that forestry was responsible for fifty cents of every dollar generated in British Columbia.  “It wasn’t that high, but it was really major,” said Bob Williams, B.C.’s forestry minister for three of those years in the 1970s. Over the last month, Williams has looked on in sadness as the announcements of mill closures or slowdowns have piled up across the province. But he also knows that the forest industry has been in perpetual decline in the province for decades, a once great bulwark being chipped away at year after year.  “It’s the chickens coming home to roost … it’s a scandalous waste of riches and it’s been true for the last 50 years,” Williams said. In the past week, both the government and opposition party have pledged support and offered policy proposals to help the battered industry and the towns across B.C. reliant on it.