What Wood for BC NDP's "Mass Timber" Homebuilding Plans? 🪚🪵

Feb 1
3 min read

Updated: Feb 24

Where will we get our wood if our forestry sector is collapsing?

By: HomesNotBankMachines

British Columbia’s housing crisis is colliding with a drastic reduction in our wood supply for home building. The BC NDP has presided over this situation without offering real solutions. While the government chants about mass timber, (using wood to build homes), promising more homes and jobs, its ever-changing regulatory policies are shuttering lumber mills across the province. This throttles the supply of wood needed to build any of these proposed homes.

Growing US tariffs on wood from our forests are the icing on this collapsing cake.

The result? Not a green revolution in wood-first construction. Instead, we see record mill closures and thousands of family-supporting jobs lost in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. A lumber-starved province is now forced to import what it once harvested itself.

BC NDP Government Mass Timber Promises — BC's UBC Brock Commons Tallwood House showcases sustainable construction of 'Mass Timber' up to 18-storeys. Photo from BC Government website.

The Dire Outlook for Forestry

The outlook is so grim that even former BC NDP Premier Glen Clark warned the provincial government at a Business Council of BC Summit. He urged them to stop making changes to land-use planning and let the industry catch up.

However, taking good advice or heeding business concerns is not a BC NDP strength. They recently disbanded their business advisory group roundtable.

Sobering Statistics: Mills Closing, Lumber Stuck in the Forest

Business in Vancouver News reports:

Since 2022, 15,000 forest sector jobs have been lost, according to Council of Forest Industries (COFI) BC data.
Since 2023, there have been 21 permanent or indefinite mill closures, including wood pulp and sawmills.
Timber harvest levels have plunged to half of previous peak years.
The BC Council of Forest Industries and Truck Loggers’ Association now warn that 2026 could be another “tough year,” with more mills teetering on the brink of closure. There simply aren’t enough BC government-approved permits for economically harvestable nearby trees to keep them running.

A world leader in sustainable forestry by multiple independent studies, BC has never faced a tree shortage. Forests account for 55 million hectares. That’s the equivalent of the entire land area of France (excluding overseas areas) or 135.9 million American football fields.

Three trees are planted for each one cut. Less than one per cent of BC forests are harvested annually, tracked by the accredited Naturally Wood group, a partnership of academia, government, and industry experts.

The Impact of New Regulations

New logging-area protections, steeper permitting hurdles, and rapid policy shifts have slashed the actual number of permitted trees cut. While politicians talk of “stabilizing timber supply,” the timber we need for homebuilding sits locked up.

Red Tape Strangling Housing and Forestry Together

At the same time, the province has touted mass-timber and tall wood buildings as solutions to home shortages. But these ambitions ignore a crucial fact: modern mass-timber plants require steady, predictable timber flows from nearby sawmills and harvesters.

Instead, companies face an array of evolving regulations, environmental assessment delays, and unclear processes driven by the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). These processes are often contested in court with overlapping land claims. This growing risk and uncertainty lead to declining investments in both local mills and wood-first housing construction. When mayors and industry leaders ask the BC NDP to unblock harvest permits and streamline approvals, they wait months or even years for discretionary ministerial decisions. Meanwhile, the government promises another ‘study’ or review, which is code for kicking the problem down the road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjiXq49ll20

Separate fact from fiction around BC's world-leading sustainable forestry practices.

A Disconnect Between Slogans and Reality

The brutal irony is that this government promises “more mass-timber homes” while overseeing one of the most interventionist, high-cost forestry harvesting jurisdictions in North America. No wonder many BC forest companies like Canfor, Interfor, and West Fraser fled to the United States, taking their billions in tax revenues with them. We need those funds for our hospitals, education, and social services. This exodus happened before US President Trump increased his crippling tariffs.

Until the provincial government admits that many of its crippling red tape policies have strangled forestry and housing—shedding jobs and investments—every new promise about building more “mass-timber” homes will just echo in the emptiness of another closed mill.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

We must advocate for significant policy changes in Canada. It's time to reduce government taxes, fees, and regulations on housing. We need to make home ownership and rentals genuinely affordable for everyone. The future of our communities depends on it.

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