Shaw: Forestry leaders warn Eby reforms moving too slowly to save mills

BC's forestry challenges

Photo: Flickr/Government of British Columbia

B.C. Premier David Eby speaks to reporters on Nov. 17, 2025. The premier appeared at the Natural Resources Forum in Prince George on Tuesday, where he said there are “no quick fixes” for B.C.’s forestry sector despite mounting mill closures and layoffs.

Premier David Eby began his address to the Natural Resources Forum in Prince George Tuesday night describing the “hardest challenge and where I think we have the most work ahead”: the province’s beleaguered forestry sector.

Eby said he’s still trying to bring about stability to an industry rocked by American softwood lumber tariffs, admitting “there are no quick fixes” to the dozens of mill closures, curtailments and layoffs occurring under his government.

“It is challenging,” Eby said.

“It always feels too slow for the urgency of the threat. But predictable land access, permit reform, value-added investments and new trading relationships will deliver a better forestry future.”

The premier skipped an opportunity to speak to forestry leaders directly last week at the annual Truck Loggers Association convention, becoming the first premier in recent memory to do so. Instead, Eby was on a trade mission to India.

Perhaps if he’d gone, he would have once again been reminded from those working in forestry that it is the NDP government’s own policies on old growth, climate, reconciliation and permitting that have created the crisis the industry faces, with American tariffs just adding to the damage.

Forestry companies complain of a persistent inability to access economical trees, wood waste and fibre that is crippling the industry, leading to sawmill closures that compound into pulp mill closures that compound into hundreds of jobs lost in just the last year.

Eby though, had a different view, from his perch at the Natural Resources Forum.

“Certainty matters and reform is overdue,” he said. “That is why the minister has announced we are moving away from a permit-by-permit system and toward an operational approach to forestry.”

The core of this new approach?

“Forest Landscape Plans—developed together with First Nations, industry, and communities,” said the premier, adding they “provide years of certainty.”

It’s not a new concept.

Eby actually launched it almost three years ago. Since then, only one of the 15 forest landscape planning tables has actually reached completion. Eleven are still stuck in the earliest stage, part of a sort of paralyzation between forest companies, unions, community leaders and Indigenous communities on planning.

The premier continued to insist that “these are results that take time, energy and commitment. But they are real—and they are the future of a sustainable industry.”

A future unfurling at a snail’s pace, it would appear, buffeted by a blitz of government reviews launched into every aspect of the forest sector, adding further instability to the mix.

A presenter at the Truck Loggers convention in Vancouver last week put up a slide of government reviews that have contradicted the premier’s assertions of “certainty,” listing more than 60 reviews that have affected forestry since the NDP took office in 2017.

Others spoke of persistent multi-year strategic problems.

“I don’t have any silver bullets or magic solutions,” said Jonathan Armstrong, vice-president of Vancouver-based Western Forest Products.

He said “the markets are not the problem here” but that “people just cannot access the land base” and government policies have piled up unsustainable per cubic meter costs onto timber.

Fibre is so difficult to access that Harmac pulp mill in Nanaimo is now importing a record amount from the United States just to keep its mill running at an economical capacity, said Harmac CEO Paul Sadler.

The B.C. government’s industrial carbon pricing system, developed under the Eby government, also costs Harmac $6 million, which will rise to $12 million by 2030, said Sadler.

Jim Girvan, a forestry consultant and former Truck Loggers Association executive director, told the convention that the premier’s forest landscape planning tables are too slow to meet the moment.

“We can’t wait five to 10 years to get them done or else there won’t be an industry to get to,” said Girvan.

The Eby government is leaving billions of dollars in revenue and tens of thousands of jobs on the table by not reforming its policies to help the sector grow, he added.

That was not the view Forests Minister Ravi Parmar took when speaking at the Truck Loggers convention in the premier’s place last week. He pointed to BC Timber Sales reforms, a reduction in permitting times and more wood waste available.

“I'm damn proud of the changes we're making to BC Timber Sales, because at the end of the day, it's all about performance and getting more fibre out, and that is ultimately what it comes down to,” he said.

Parmar reiterated Eby’s vision.

“I see a future where we have no need for cutting permits in forestry here in British Columbia,” said the minister.

“Instead, I want the industry working alongside First Nations loggers and partners to develop forest operational plans, plans to provide years of certainty on the land base.”

A utopian vision for B.C.’s forestry future. After nine years of an NDP government so far taking the sector in the opposite direction, further and further away from certainty.

Rob Shaw has spent more than 18 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for BIV. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital.