Of course they threw a complaint about regulations in there. Overcoming short term pains by demolishing our long term barriers is not helpful, especially when it comes to the ecosystem.

Canada does tend to export raw goods, and then import refined product. This isn’t just an issue in forestry, honestly – like our oil/gas industry is also in that boat, with about 5m barrels/day produced, a demand for 2.5m barrels domestically, and a refinement capacity of about 1m barrels/day, meaning we’re exporting ~4m barrels, and importing 1.5m barrels of refined product.

Lumber/forestry is in a similar boat. If we had more refined production, that demand could help stabilize the forestry industry domestically, in theory. All this talk about pre-fab homes, and the need for furniture etc, could heavily leverage Canadian forest products – as could things like bath towels and other textiles. It’s just difficult/impossible to build that industry up, if we’re also able to import cheap alternatives from places like the States/China, which already have more mature production/refinement options. Like we have all this lumber, why aren’t there cheap wood-based serving utensils in every Canadian home – instead of those cheap toxic plastic things?

Idk, I’d generally agree with the sentiment. Though I wouldn’t absolve the American side of accountability here, as often our limitations are partly a result of US investment/policies killing off potential domestic competition, and our local politicians just bending over gleefully without question.

Hodgson, who is in Langford, B.C., to meet with Canada’s provincial and territorial forest ministers, also released a report suggesting homegrown problems, such as unstable access to fibre and lack of domestic demand that are threatening the industry with an “existential crisis.”

Look, jobs are nice, but not needing to cut down trees is not the worst problem to have. Trees are good!