Conservative MLA Anna Kindy, MP Aaron Gunn, and North Island Mayors Demand Action on Coastal Forestry Crisis in BC
“We need urgent leadership to cut red tape, restore investor confidence, and ensure our world-class forestry workers can continue providing for their families.”
– Anna Kindy, MLA for North Island
VICTORIA,BC: At a press conference today at the Legislative Assembly, Conservative MLA for North Island Anna Kindy, North Island-Powell River MP Aaron Gunn, and the Mayors of Sayward, Gold River, Port McNeill, Powell River, and Campbell River announced an urgent call for action to support our province’s coastal forestry sector.
The media event follows a letter from northern Vancouver Island elected officials to Premier Eby and Prime Minister Carney warning that coastal forestry in BC is under attack from misguided government policies, resulting in multiple mill closures, thousands of job losses, and the hollowing-out of rural communities.
“Families across northern Vancouver Island are witnessing their way of life disappear. In Port McNeill alone, curtailments at Western Forest Products have devastated livelihoods and forced many out of their communities,” said MLA Kindy. “We need urgent leadership to cut red tape, restore investor confidence, and ensure our world-class forestry workers can continue providing for their families.”
Harvest volumes on the BC coast have collapsed by over 40% since 2019, with over 5,400jobs lost since 2022. Since 2018, nine coastal mills have closed, and remaining operations have resorted to measures such as importing logs from the United States. Meanwhile, permitting timelines that used to take weeks now take years, creating delays that further drive-up costs and force investments and jobs out of our province.
The result is an exodus of investment, the erosion of family and community-supporting jobs, and dependence on imported fibre. All consequences of federal and provincial government policies that prioritize ideology over common sense.
Campbell River Mayor Kermit Dahl added, “US tariffs are not the root cause of this crisis. While other jurisdictions face similar trade pressures, BC’s coastal forestry sector has been uniquely harmed by regulatory uncertainty. We are one pulp mill closure away from the total collapse of coastal forestry.”
MP Gunn concluded: “Government needs to streamline permitting, restore legal and regulatory certainty, abandon ideological, one-size-fits-all land-use frameworks like 30×30, and support a predictable fibre supply so Canadians can get back to work.
“British Columbia already has the best forestry workers of anywhere in the world. They deserve government policies and support that allow them to succeed.”
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Media Contact:
Robert Eales, Communications Officer
Robert.Eales@leg.bc.ca
+1 (778) 967-2818
MP Gun and MLA Kindy Letter Below
