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By Victor Kaisar

Forestry Woes

100 Mile House mayor ‘profoundly disappointed’ by impending sawmill closure

Nov 8, 2025 | 11:08 AM

100 MILE HOUSE, B.C. — The mayor of 100 Mile House says the community is profoundly disappointed by West Fraser’s decision to permanently cease operations at the local sawmill by the end of this calendar year.

Maureen Pinkney says the closure and the loss of 165 jobs will lead to difficult times for forestry workers and their families as well as local businesses, schools and support industries in 100 Mile House. She said while the impacts of the 165 lost jobs will be immediate, other impacts may take more time to surface.

“We sincerely feel for the employees who are directly impacted by West Fraser’s business decision,” Pinkney said in a news release. “[We feel] for their families, and for the community as a whole.”

West Fraser is also closing mills in Georgia, Arkansas and Florida, and it said its decisions are “the result of timber supply challenges and soft lumber markets.” In reference to 100 Mile House, the company said several factors conspired to doom the operation.

“The 100 Mile House lumber mill is no longer able to reliably access an adequate volume of economically viable timber,” West Fraser said. “Challenging softwood lumber demand, higher duties and additional tariffs have compounded this situation.”

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Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Lorne Doerkson said the impending closure will be devastating for the South Cariboo.

“It’s not just these 165 jobs which by itself is just devastating, but there certainly are multiplier effects,” Doerksen told CFJC. Even best case scenario is pretty devastating.”

Doerksen also said while there have been multiple mill closures in recent years, the closure of the 100 Mile House sawmill was unexpected to both him and the District.

“We have an annual allowable cut of 63 million cubic metres, but last year we did 31,” Kamloops-North Thompson MLA, Ward Stamer, the BC Conservative Forest Critic, told CFJC.

“The premier and the forest minster have guaranteed a path to 45, but I would suggest its a path to collapse, because we’re still stuck at 30 or less. Mills do not have enough fibre to be able to maintain operations.”

In a statement, BC Forest Minister Ravi Parmar said he is “heartbroken” by the news, adding he has assurances from West Fraser that they’ll try to find affected employees work at other operations in the Cariboo.

“I have spoken with Mayor [Maureen] Pinkney and representatives of the United Steelworkers, and shared our government’s commitment to support their community and workers,” Parmar said. “And let’s be clear, this closure is another consequence of Donald Trump’s unfair attack on Canada’s forestry sector.”

Doerksen said while he can “appreciate” that there is lots of talk with respect to tariffs, he noted the issues in B.C.’s forest sector have been underway for years.

“We’ve got in this province a permanent crisis,” Doerksen added. “We’ve lost so many hectares of our resource to forest fire and so this is not something new. This has been talked about for all five years that I’ve been an MLA.”

“I think there has been some agreement on both sides, but what we need to be doing in B.C. right now is solving the things we can. We have to get these permits moving and we have to make the entire environment much more approachable as far as industry is concerned.”

In her statement, Pinkney said the District of 100 Mile House will continue to be focused on advancing and supporting “other promising economic opportunities” in the community, while looking to find ways to make up lost tax revenue.

“We’ve been through mill closures before, weathered difficult economic times, and have come out stronger in the end,” Pinkney noted. “Our community has an amazing network of support agencies and a willingness to work together to support impacted workers and families.”

– With files from Michael Reeve/CFJC Today