Western Forest Products is extending the curtailment of its Cowichan Bay sawmill until at least September.

Western Forest Products is extending the curtailment of its Cowichan Bay sawmill, leaving 54 employees without work until at least September.

The Cowichan Bay mill had been idled on May 4, but there were hopes it would reopen as the home-building season got underway, according to the union.

Another 120 workers at Western’s Chemainus sawmill have been on the sidelines for more than a year.

The Chemainus mill was shuttered in June 2025.

In January, the company announced that the curtailment was expected to last through all of this year.

Western is citing “persistently weak market conditions” and has said significant increases in U.S. softwood lumber duties and tariffs are a contributing factor in the ongoing curtailments.

Brian Butler, president of United Steelworkers Local 1-1937, said it continues to be a tough year for the manufacturing side of forestry. “It’s been awful for the workers,” he said.

Butler agreed that markets for lumber remain weak, but said the hope is that rising prices for lumber and growing demand during the summer building season will help “get these mills going again sooner.”

“But all these external factors, like weak demand and softwood duties, are taking their toll.”

Butler estimates that about 750 members on the manufacturing side of the union have been out of work on the coast for extended periods, with closures including two Island mills in Port Alberni and another on the north coast.

Western Forest Products, whose operations support about 3,300 jobs on the coast, said in November that its curtailments in the third and fourth quarters reduced lumber production at its B.C. sawmills by about 50 million board feet in the second half of 2025, about six per cent of the company’s annual lumber capacity.

Butler said some of the affected workers at Cowichan Bay may be assigned to Western’s other operations, but with some of the other mills only operating single shifts, that may be difficult.

He said most of the curtailed Western mill workers are collecting employment insurance through the federal government, and some others are finding work elsewhere.
   
Source: biv.com