Канадская ассоциация лесной промышленности призывает правительство к срочным реформам для роста сектора

Moving Forward with Urgency to Sustain and Grow Canada’s Forest Sector Sponsored Content By Forest Products Association of Canada Written by Derek Nighbor, President and CEO of Forest Products Association of Canada and Canadian Wood Council Despite the challenges abound, Canada has every reason to remain ambitious about the future of its forest sector. We have a renewable resource, skilled workers, world-class forestry expertise, established manufacturing capacity, and deep roots in communities across the country. Forestry is one of Canada’s natural advantages and a longstanding economic pillar, supporting jobs, exports, Indigenous economic participation, and regional economies from coast to coast. There is broad political agreement on the sector’s importance. Governments recognize that Canada needs strong domestic industries, more private investment, reliable supply chains, and good jobs outside our largest cities. Forestry advances all of those priorities. The work now is to turn that support into practical decisions. Canada’s forest products sector is navigating a difficult period. Trade disputes continue, markets are shifting, and operating costs are rising. Those pressures are compounded by made-in-Canada barriers: overlapping rules, slow decisions, uncertain access to usable wood, and transportation costs that make it harder for Canadian producers to compete. Before a company invests inside the mill gate, it needs confidence in what will be available at the forest floor. A mill modernization, new product line, or major productivity upgrade can only move forward if the company expects to have access to enough usable and economically viable wood over the life of that investment. Natural disturbances are changing the amount and condition of usable wood in some regions. At the same time, federal and provincial governments can pursue similar environmental objectives through separate processes that don’t always align. Companies may face overlapping legislation, multiple approval processes, separate reporting obligations, and uncertainty about whether work already approved under one system will be revisited under another. For a capital-intensive industry, that creates a planning horizon that is difficult to work with. Companies considering major investments are looking years — and often decades — ahead. It needs to understand what fibre will be available, what rules will apply, how long decisions will take, and whether those conditions are likely to remain stable. When the answers are unclear, modernization is delayed, projects are scaled back, and investment can move to more predictable jurisdictions. This is what the forestry industry means when we talk about restoring predictability at the forest floor. It’s not a request for guaranteed outcomes, but rather a request for a commercially workable system that allows companies, communities, and Indigenous partners to make informed long-term decisions. Transportation presents another made-in-Canada barrier. Many forest products facilities are located in rural and remote communities, far from major population centres and ports. Rail is often the only practical way to move large volumes of lumber, pulp, paper, and other forest products to customers. For some producers, it can cost more to move Canadian forest products across our own country by rail than to ship them from a Canadian port to a customer overseas. That should concern anyone who wants Canadian companies to compete, diversify their markets, and serve more customers at home. High inland freight costs are leaving Canadian facilities at a disadvantage to competitors located closer to ports or major markets. Fibre access and transportation performance help determine whether a facility can operate, modernize, and reach its customers. The Forest Sector Transformation Task Force has brought these challenges into sharper focus. Its report makes clear that transformation will require more than isolated programs or one-off projects. It calls for stable access to cost-competitive fibre, modernization at scale, stronger trade infrastructure and market access, and coordinated action to support workers and communities. Taken together, those recommendations reinforce a basic point: retooling mills, developing new products, and reaching new markets depend on predictable operating conditions from the forest floor through to the customer. The playbook is on the table. The next step is implementation. A good place to start is with regulatory efficiency. Canada’s forest sector is not asking for weaker environmental protections. Our companies operate under extensive federal and provincial laws, long-term forest management plans, professional oversight, Indigenous and community engagement requirements, and internationally recognized third-party certification. These safeguards support responsible forest management and public confidence. The question is whether the system is delivering clear, timely, and coordinated decisions. There are practical ways to improve it without lowering the bar. Federal and provincial governments can make better use of existing agreements where their systems are already working toward the same outcome, rather than requiring separate processes to cover the same ground. Responsibilities and timelines should be clearer, consultation should be more structured, and routine, low-risk activities should follow standardized requirements that allow regulators to focus their attention where the risks are greatest. The same principle should apply inside the mill gate. A facility replacing equipment, improving energy efficiency, or installing a cleaner technology should not automatically trigger a full reassessment of the entire operation. Reviews should remain focused on the new or amended project and the risks it presents, while existing permits should continue to provide certainty unless material new risks arise. A typical forest sector company navigates multiple federal statutes, dozens of provincial laws, third-party certification systems, and company-specific operating procedures. Many of those requirements serve important purposes, but too often they operate in parallel rather than as part of a coherent system. The result is added cost, delay, and uncertainty around decisions that affect investment and jobs. This is where broad political support for forestry has to become more tangible. Federal and provincial governments want more private investment, stronger domestic manufacturing, better productivity, and greater economic resilience. They also want to support workers and communities through a period of significant change. A stronger forest sector can advance all of those objectives. The sector is not asking governments to remove normal business risk or insulate companies from competition. It is asking them to address the barriers within Canada’s control: reduce overlap between federal and provincial processes, clarify which order of government should lead where, improve the cost and reliability of moving goods, and give companies a clearer understanding of the resource, regulatory, and logistics conditions supporting long-term investments. The Task Force has created an opportunity to move from broad agreement to measurable progress. By the end of this year, the federal government should be able to point to legislative and regulatory work underway, clearer federal-provincial coordination, more predictable timelines, practical steps to reduce duplication, and meaningful action on the cost and reliability of moving goods. Those are reasonable tests. They don’t require governments to solve every challenge facing the sector at once, but they do require a willingness to make decisions and follow through. Canada already has a natural advantage in forestry, and the sector is ready to invest, modernize, and compete. Governments have expressed their support and the Task Force has identified the path forward. Now we need to move forward with urgency.