Where Did All
the Lumber Go?
The aftermath of a perfect storm
By Deb Draper
A significant lumber shortage has been hammering the build-ing
industry across Canada and the U.S. since early 2020,
building over the summer into an extraordinary crisis that
is only now beginning to ease. This scarcity of lumber and
building materials – everything from two-by-fours to Oriented
Strand Board (OSB) to pressure-treated posts has brought lengthy
delays and higher costs to projects of every size and scope.
The Western Retail Lumber Association (WRLA) represents
all facets and sizes of the building supply industry: manufacturing,
distribution, wholesale and retail (retail accounts for about 50 per
cent of membership). An important part of its mission is to keep
members educated and connected in the industry. To that purpose,
WRLA wants its members and their customers to understand how
this critical situation in the supply of lumber has come to pass.
First came the pests
“It was a perfect storm of issues that brought this shortage about,”
said Liz Kovach, president of WRLA. “The first catalyst was the
mountain pine beetle invasion beginning in 1999 that has destroyed
so much of our forests.”
Natural Resources Canada estimates that by 2015, the tiny
beetle had attacked 50 per cent of the total volume of commercial
lodgepole pine in British Columbia – a cumulative loss of 58 per
cent of the sellable pine volume.
“The government approved a massive salvage operation during
this time to clean out diseased trees and try to at least slow down
the beetle population growth,” said Kovach. “Once that forest area
became depleted, there was no more fibre for the mills in the area
to process and many had to close down. Because the trees take 70
DARRYL BROOKS/123RF
PHOTO COURTESY OF WESTERN RETAIL LUMBER ASSOCIATION
Liz Kovach, president,
Western Retail Lumber Association
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