The motion, submitted by Liberal MP Patrick Weiler this week, aims to end old-growth logging on federal lands and halt the export of ancient logs and related products.
A B.C. MP representing the longest named riding in Canada has introduced a motion to ban the export of old-growth logs and any products made from them.
“This is really about putting this on the radar to really push the federal government to act on this,” said Weiler in an interview. “There's probably no more important environmental issue in B.C. than protecting old growth.Joe Nemeth, project manager for the BC Pulp and Paper Coalition, slammed the motion, saying if old-growth exports were banned, it would sink industry because companies use export pricing to compensate for domestic costs of timber harvesting.
“The Biden administration in the U.S. is now creating a pathway that could end old-growth logging on their public lands across the country, and B.C. and Canada need to do the same,” he said in a statement. Weiler says the federal government is still negotiating with the B.C. government to match the fund and boost it to $164 million.
In B.C. — where old-growth forests have acted as flash-points for the largest acts of civil disobedience in Canadian history — the province has two definitions: coastal old growth must be at least 250 years old to qualify, while in many Interior forests, the minimum age is 140 years. But foresters disagree on those age thresholds, with their definitions climbing two to three times higher, says Nemeth.
Banning the export of old growth could be trickier, Weiler said, and would need go through consultation with the provincial governments and Indigenous peoples.
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