British Columbia will carve out a dedicated slice of public timber for the province’s custom cutters and processors, opening a new category inside a program that already reserves 20 per cent of BC Timber Sales supply for value-added manufacturers. That is according to BC Forests Minister Ravi Parmar, who announced the expansion in Vancouver on Monday and confirmed nearly 40 specialist businesses making everything from Japanese temple components to windows and doors stand to qualify.
Ottawa’s Forest Sector Transformation Task Force, commissioned after US President Donald Trump imposed new duties and tariffs on Canadian wood products, recommends strong support for value-added operators to help Canada build high-quality products at home. Public engagement told the government the same thing, with custom cutters and processors asking for the support already flowing to the broader sector.
“British Columbia’s path forward for forestry can’t just be providing dimensional lumber to Americans,” Parmar said, promising fibre for businesses ready to create world-class wood products that compete globally and win.
Pressure behind the pivot is not easing, with combined antidumping, countervailing, and Section 232 tariffs holding the effective rate on most Canadian softwood at 34.83 per cent ahead of a final US Department of Commerce determination expected in late August. The expansion follows the Canada-British Columbia Cooperative Prosperity Agreement signed this month, which commits Ottawa and the province to deliver softwood rescue measures by 1 December.
Custom cutters and processors fill specialty orders to exact grades, dimensions, and finishes by moving work between plants across the value-added sector. Their trade directly employs an estimated 250 people and consumes 800,000 cubic metres of wood a year, a volume the ministry counts at 17,700 truckloads, supporting marine towing, trucking, and rail operators through to Vancouver’s export wharves.
“The reason we don’t own a sawmill is when you’re custom cutting, you’re customer-specific,” Sundher Group president Tom Sundher said at the Vancouver announcement, with the Surrey company choosing mills by their equipment to turn coastal hemlock, Douglas fir, and western red and yellow cedars into products for global buyers, including the growing Indian market.
Announced in January 2023 with 10 per cent of BC Timber Sales supply, the program doubled its allocation to 20 per cent in 2025 and now counts 82 registered participants producing mass timber, plywood, veneer, panelling, and flooring. Entry is restricted to value-added manufacturers holding limited or no forest tenure who own or lease their own facilities, with the new category under development to bring the custom-cut trade inside.
“This expansion will allow Triad to grow its business and extend its markets,” Triad Forest Products president John McCarter said, with the company chasing buyers outside the United States as the sector adds long-term, quality employment.
“We are pleased to see this inclusive change,” said Kelly Marciniw, chair of the BC Wood Specialties Group Association, whose custom cutting and processing members took part in the task force’s public consultation.
Not every number, however, favours the sector, with a Natural Resources Canada study published in May finding just 17 per cent of British Columbia’s secondary wood manufacturers run at full efficiency, trailing the province’s sawmills and panel makers since before the 2007 to 2009 financial crisis.
On the ministry’s numbers, the expansion opens the door for up to 40 more businesses on top of 82 registered participants, in a program that has moved nearly 1.5 million cubic metres of wood since 2023 into a value-added sector that contributed more than $1.3 billion to British Columbia’s gross domestic product in 2024.
