'I know how hard it is': BC's Minister of Jobs on sawmill closures

BC’s Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation says she knows how hard it is for people affected by forestry-related job closures.

Brenda Bailey sat down with NowMedia to discuss the provincial economy, with particular focus on the closures of several mills in northern BC and the Interior.

“I spend some time worrying about forestry. I grew up in a forestry family. My dad was in logging,” Bailey said.

“It's not just the forestry workers that are impacted, it's all of those peripheral jobs that are so important to a community. I know how hard it is. It's really tough when this happens.”

Although BC’s forestry industry has been hit hard in recent months and lost 10,000 jobs in 2023, Bailey said these impacts are happening across North America.

She said the challenges faced by the industry have to do with the value of timber.

However, Bailey said the provincial government was trying to tackle this by “bringing more value for every piece of wood” that comes from BC forests through mass timber products.

“I've been hearing about this issue my entire life that we need more value,” she told NowMedia.

“And that's why I'm such a huge fan of mass timber. Not only is it a really beautiful building product, it's lower carbon, it's a better building product, it can offset some use of concrete, for example, and it creates more jobs.”

She pointed to mass timber facilities in Nelson.

Recently, the province also announced a $7 million funding boost for Mercer Mass Timber in Okanagan Falls, which is expected to support nearly 30 jobs in the small community.

Besides supporting more value-added timber facilities, Bailey said the NDP government was also working to provide jobs for people in communities affected by mill closures, like Merrit, Bear Lake and Prince George.

“We have $180 million that we've been investing in what we call the manufacturing jobs plan,” Bailey explained.

She said that about half of that is “aligned specifically” to forestry to add more value to timber products while the other half supports companies that have an ability to grow a “high quality” manufacturing sector in BC.

NowMedia asked if Bailey thought there was a future for sawmills in BC given all the closures.

“I'm sure there's a future for sawmills in British Columbia,” she said, while highlighting the different challenges facing the industry, including beetle kill, pricing and wildfires.

“Some of the sawmills have been telling us that part of the problem is getting access to fibre in a timely way. And the premier up at the natural resource forum heard that concern and created a position for one of the MLAs named Andrew Mercier to specifically work on addressing this fibre challenge.”

NowMedia also asked what the province was doing to support people in smaller communities like Bear Lake, which was built around the forestry industry.

Bailey echoed the words of her colleagues in the Ministry of Forests, who told NowMedia in May that they were “determined to support” forestry workers after a temporary closure of the mill in Merritt.

She explained that the government was working on “driving a diversified economy,” which she said can help lessen the impacts of a downturn in a sector like forestry.

“We're using a number of different tools,” she explained.

“One of our investment tools is called NBC. It's a 500 million strategic investment tool. And when they look at which companies to invest in, they look from the lens of, ‘does this have benefits in rural communities that have been impacted by forestry.’”

NowMedia also asked Bailey what she would say to people in the forestry industry to assure them there is a future for that sector.

“Forestry has always been a tricky industry that's somewhat cyclical. That's the unfortunate nature of it. And it's very dependent on factors that we don't get to control,” Bailey said.

“But there will always be a forestry industry in BC. This entire province was built on forestry.”

She said the challenges, like “market forces,” will change over time and that it’s “really important not to feel hopeless.”