Opinion: B.C. needs more than major projects to build a strong economy

We are spending a lot of time talking about major projects these days. And that’s a good thing. B.C. needs the investment, infrastructure, jobs and opportunities that come with them.

But somewhere along the way, we seem to have decided that major projects are the only answer to our economic challenges.

There’s a catch with that approach: for most major projects, the biggest boost happens during construction.

I know this from experience. Earlier in my career, I worked for a natural gas company that owned significant pipeline infrastructure. My job involved returning to communities along the pipeline route for smaller construction projects, maintenance and upgrades.

Those were interesting conversations.

Communities had rarely heard from us after the construction crews moved on. When I returned with new projects, the reception was mixed. And understandably so.

The pipeline kept operating, but the local economic scale had shifted.

This reinforced a critical lesson for me: the economic benefit of building something is very different from the benefit of sustaining something.

If our economic strategy relies too heavily on new construction, we will need a steady flow of megaprojects just to stay afloat.

Here’s the good news. We don’t have to choose.

We can build major projects while strengthening the industries that already provide jobs, investment and economic activity in communities across B.C.

Forestry is one of those industries.

Forestry quite literally and figuratively built B.C. From the wood-framed homes we live in, to the towns that grew around mills, it has shaped the very fabric of our province.

Unlike a construction project, forestry’s economic contribution doesn’t end when the assembly is complete.

Trees are harvested, forests are regenerated, and wood products are made and sold locally and around the world. That activity can continue —sustainably — for generations.

Forestry supports jobs on Vancouver Island, in the North, the Central Interior, the Southern Interior and throughout the Lower Mainland, where over a quarter of the sector’s jobs are located. It offers established networks, skilled workers, and global customers ready to generate revenue right now.

Yet instead of leveraging this advantage, we seem to have accepted managing the industry’s decline.

Some consolidation was inevitable following the mountain pine beetle epidemic as temporary timber supplies wound down. But what we are experiencing today goes far beyond that adjustment.

Mills are closing. Workers are losing livelihoods. Contractors are struggling. Communities are losing employers that have upheld local economies for generations. Much of this damage is self-inflicted.

Why are we working so hard to remove barriers for industries we hope to attract, while piling barriers onto the industries we already have?

While government works to streamline permitting for new major projects, forestry has faced the opposite: layered regulations, overlapping processes, and rising operating costs. The result is an industry that is increasingly difficult and expensive to operate in, even as global markets become more challenging and U.S. trade barriers grow. We cannot control American trade policy from B.C. But we can control many of the homegrown constraints that are undermining our competitiveness.

Unlike projects that take years to permit, finance and construct, forestry is turnkey. The mills exist, the workers are trained, and the demand is there. We simply need to make operating in B.C. affordable again.

With a provincial election underway, candidates must recognize that our forest sector is in a deepening crisis. Every closure risks permanently losing good jobs, roads and factories, manufacturing capacity, and expertise that may never return.

Regardless of who forms the next government, forestry requires action from day one.

Within its first 90 days, the new government needs to:

Empower a Premier-led forest crisis action group across key ministries and industry to deliver immediate access to affordable timber for B.C. manufacturers.

Freeze new government-imposed costs that threaten jobs, wood supply and investment, while reviewing and reducing existing burdens.

Shift to outcomes-based regulation, replacing duplicative and prescriptive processes with streamlined oversight that protects environmental values while allowing qualified professionals to do their jobs.

Deploy rapid-response plans for facilities at risk of closure to keep operations running, retain skilled workers and preserve critical infrastructure.

B.C. needs major projects. We should pursue them with ambition. And we must bring that same ambition and urgency to forestry.

We don’t have to trade our foundational industries for new major projects: the smartest economic strategy fuels both.

Kim Haakstad is president and CEO of the B.C. Council of Forest Industries.