Canada’s international trade minister says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s official visit to Washington helped secure a “real breakthrough” in the contentious softwood lumber negotiations. “We have now managed to get the Americans to the table, we have managed to raise attention to this issue at the very highest levels,” Chrystia Freeland said in an interview with Chris Hall…

WorkSafeBC has launched an investigation into the cause of an explosion and fire at a forest products mill in Quesnel, B.C. Al Johnson, vice-president of prevention services, said a team of WorkSafe investigators took over the scene from the RCMP on Thursday morning, barely 12 hours after fire tore through a section of the WestPine…

B.C. Premier Christy Clark says she is optimistic about a top-level agreement to try to head off another Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade conflict. British Columbia sent $3.3-billion of softwood lumber to the United States last year, but the expiration of the 2006 softwood lumber agreement means that U.S. forestry interests have an opportunity to launch…

The next seven months could be very nervous times in Canada’s forestry sector, particularly softwood lumber. That’s because the Softwood Lumber Agreement that Canada signed with the U.S. in 2006 expired last October 12. Canada had hoped to simply renew the agreement at that time, but the U.S. refused. Instead, we have a one-year grace…

Amid the glitz of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s state dinner at the White House this week, perhaps it’s unfashionable to remember these two great neighbours also have one of the largest and longest-running trade disputes in the world. A tiff over two-by-fours is less sexy than wondering whose spouse is wearing what. But the billion-dollar…

The Cochrane Power biomass plant could potentially have a chance to get its operation up-and-running again. At its annual meeting on Friday, The Northeastern Ontario Municipal Association (NEOMA) unanimously supported lobbying the provincial government to reconsider the plant for its Large Renewable Procurement 1 (LRP 1). Ted Griffin, with the lobby group Campbell Strategies, presented…

A petition against biomass electricity generation is gathering steam, just in time for the annual general meeting of the Forest Professionals of Nova Scotia, set for March 10 and 11 in Truro. Helga Guderley of Boutiliers Point launched the effort asking the Nova Scotia government to stop cutting down Nova Scotia trees for so-called “green”…

The Yukon Government has officially adopted a strategy to get Yukoners to heat their homes in a way that it says is cost-effective and environmentally sustainable. The government drafted its biomass strategy last year, noting that wood-fueled heating systems are present in just 20 per cent of Yukon homes. Yukoners spend $60 million a year on fossil fuels, a figure the government wants…

Swedish researchers from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and research groups, Innventia and Swerea, claim to have produced the world’s first model car with a roof and battery made from wood-based carbon fibre. This novel material, made of lignin, is said to be a lightweight and renewable alternative to metals and other composites. Lignin…

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is expressing hope the Trudeau government can overcome U.S. resistance and renew a  softwood lumber deal that brought peace to Canada-U.S. trade relations a decade ago. “The last time … relations around softwood lumber went sideways, [Canada’s] whole relationship with the United States went off the rails,” Clark told reporters in Ottawa Thursday….