C&C #13: A Founding B.C. Industry Goes South

Interfor started as a coastal logging outfit in British Columbia in 1963. Sixty-three years later, its head office is packing up for Peachtree City, Georgia. Eighty-four per cent of its lumber sales are American now.Episode 13 of ICBA Coffee & Construction — the news that matters to the people who build British Columbia and Alberta, with ICBA's Jordan Bateman. On today's show:☕ THE BIG ONE: Interfor moves corporate functions from Burnaby to Georgia. The mills went south years ago — now the head office follows. And the numbers behind it: 15,000 B.C. forest sector jobs gone since 2022, 21 mills closed since 2023, and a harvest running 32 million cubic metres against the province's own 45-million target. That's a 13-MILLION-cubic-metre hole. Every year.🛢️ CABINET NIMBYISM: The Eby cabinet approved FortisBC's $2-billion Tilbury LNG expansion in Delta — 1,100 construction jobs a year, $260 million in tax revenue, a Musqueam equity stake, cleaner marine fuel at the Port of Vancouver. Then a sitting cabinet minister went public against her own government's decision. What should have happened next? She should have resigned.🎯 WHY LNG IS THE NEW TARGET: The campaign against Canadian energy has moved off pipelines and onto LNG — and the tactics have moved too. Off the regulators, onto the banks, the pension funds and the insurers. Plus the part that complicates the story: Cedar LNG is majority-owned by the Haisla Nation, Ksi Lisims is being developed with the Nisga'a.🚧 WHERE THE WORK IS: RFPs for the first two Fraser River Tunnel work packages hit the market in early August. Nine years, zero lanes, and a price that's gone from $4.15 billion to $8.5 billion — but the work is real and the paperwork drops next week. Go get it.🎙️ THIS FRIDAY — a special edition. Our first-ever guest: ICBA Alberta President Mike Martens on the $318 billion sitting in Alberta's project registry, the data centre wave, Dow's Path2Zero restart, and who on earth is going to build it all.📊 Get the ICBA Economics briefing — the most helpful email you'll get all week: https://icba.ca/economicsRead more on today's stories:Interfor shifting corporate functions to Georgia: https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/canadian-lumber-company-interfor-migrate-120021442.htmlB.C.'s forest sector and the harvest gap: https://www.biv.com/news/bc-forest-sector-faces-another-tough-year-in-2026-11793817Canfor closing the Northwood pulp mill in Prince George: https://todayinbc.com/2026/07/15/canfor-closing-prince-george-northwood-pulp-mill-300-jobs-affected/Jordan Bateman on cabinet nimbyism and Tilbury: https://icba.ca/bc-blog/icba.ca-op/ed-cabinet-nimbyism-yet-another-ndp-hurdle-to-b.c.-prosperityThe Province's Tilbury decision: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026ECS0043-000870Why activists are targeting LNG: https://energynow.ca/2026/07/the-new-target-why-anti-oil-and-gas-activists-are-making-canadian-lng-not-pipelines-their-next-major-target/Fraser River Tunnel procurement and federal funding: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026TT0066-000796ICBA Coffee & Construction drops every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe, hit the bell, and send this one to somebody who builds for a living.ICBA is Canada's largest construction association — the voice of B.C. and Alberta's open-shop builders: https://icba.ca#construction #bcpoli #BritishColumbia #forestry #LNG #Delta #PrinceGeorge #housing #ICBA