The Prime Minister keeps insisting he’s “a man with a plan.” That’s the pitch. The reality looks nothing like that. In Question Period, Todd Doherty spelled it out: communities across this country are being gutted while Ottawa pretends everything is under control.
Canada’s softwood lumber industry isn’t a side project. In 2023, we exported $7.4 billion in softwood lumber to the United States. And while Washington slapped anti-dumping and countervailing duties on our producers, Ottawa responded with its favourite phrase: “ongoing engagement.” Translation: stalling.
The U.S. ran its five-year review in late 2023 and kept those duties in place. Meanwhile, softwood lumber tariffs pushed toward 45 percent by 2025, putting B.C.’s forest sector under what experts politely call “extreme pressure.” Out here, we call that a crisis.
Look at B.C. if you want the receipts. The 2023 harvest was 42 percent below the allowable cut. Harvest volumes collapsed from 60 million cubic metres in 2018 to 35 million in 2023. Jobs? Cut nearly in half over two decades. COFI estimates around 10,000 jobs lost in 2023 alone. That’s not economics — that’s a slow-motion hollowing-out.
COFI warned that rising U.S. tariffs were “a serious blow” to a sector already bleeding from uncertainty, closures, and policy failure, and they said resolving softwood lumber must be a national priority. Ottawa nodded politely and walked away.
And here’s the part Doherty threw down in the House:
A previous Conservative government negotiated a softwood lumber agreement in 79 days. Seventy-nine. The Liberals had years to land a deal and never delivered one. By the time Mark Carney walked into office, the damage was already stacked high — mill closures, job losses, and entire communities left twisting while Ottawa rotated photo-ops.
Carney took office promising “unimaginable speed.”
Maybe somewhere. Not here.
When it comes to pipelines inside Canada, Carney’s government hasn’t approved anything. The much-advertised “pipeline agreement” with Alberta is nothing more than a political handshake to consider reviewing a proposal years down the road. No commitment, no timeline, no construction — just a promise to talk about talking later. Meanwhile, resource provinces are expected to clap like trained seals because Ottawa said “maybe.”
But when it comes to softwood lumber — real workers, real towns — speed isn’t unimaginable. It’s nonexistent.
Doherty asked how this government can look forestry workers in the eye. They didn’t answer. They never answer the questions that matter.
Carney keeps telling Canadians he has a plan. Maybe he thinks he does. But people in lumber towns already learned what a “plan” looks like when it never shows up.
Pretending to have a plan isn’t the same as having one.
And nobody knows that better than the communities still waiting for Ottawa to wake up.
Watch on YouTube:
Todd Doherty Confronts PM Over Broken Promises
