On his first visit to Revelstoke, B.C.’s minister of forests got comfy in the rain Tuesday afternoon while speaking about his hopes for local saw mills, old-growth and caribou protection.
Ravi Parmar, also the province’s deputy government house leader, had just arrived to town on June 9 after a visit to the Pacific Woodtech mill in Golden and a cloudy-but-scenic drive through Rogers Pass.
One of his first stops in Revelstoke was the Downie Street Development, where the Revelstoke Community Housing Society met Parmar to showcase the major 166-unit housing project and its use of B.C. lumber.
“This is a substantive investment from BC Housing,” he said.
Black Press Media, tipped that the minister was visiting, got 20 minutes interviewing him as it poured.
Parmar spoke highly of Gorman Group, which has owned Revelstoke’s Downie Timber and Selkirk Cedar mills since 1990. These operations are the “lifeblood” of rural communities, he said.
“It is the institution that provides a strong, stable tax base,” Parmar said. “They support the community programs. They support children’s soccer games.”
READ: Revelstoke cuts ribbon for new urban forest
On a tour of Downie Timber in February, Black Press Media learned that the mill employs 220 local jobs, and to date, logged 1,700 combined days of operation without losing time from worker injuries.
Operating on 80 hectares, the mill fills 200 logging trucks per week with cedar, hemlock, fir, spruce and pine. Investments such as a $5.5-million debarker have helped Downie Timber edge logs and salvage more lumber for sale and for kiln fuel to dry out wood.
Parmar said B.C. must weigh its forestry management across a range of values, including timber sales, wildfire mitigation, caribou conservation and First Nations priorities.
In a recent announcement, a quote from Parmar read, “the best wildfire is the one that never starts.” When asked about his stance on Indigenous cultural burning and controlled use of fire by groups such as Parks Canada, he said the province is “really behind” and should’ve started implementing controlled burns a long time ago.
British Columbians “have every right” to fear wildfire season and its impact on safety and livelihoods, Parmar added, but “until a couple of years ago, it boggles my mind that cultural burning was illegal here in British Columbia.”
He also placed blame for the destruction of southern mountain caribou habitat on wildfires. The B.C. government reported in a fact sheet this May that fire is the leading disturbance for caribou in the province’s north and affects 22 per cent of habitat.
However, it also shows forest extraction remains the biggest threat for southern herds’ core and wider matrix habitat, along with matrix habitat for central B.C. herds. As well, environmental groups Wildsight, Stand.earth and the Wilderness Committee reported last year that 76 per cent of Columbia North herd habitat near Revelstoke faces risk of logging.
Parmar said the Ministry of Forests is working closely with the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship to maintain and potentially even regrow existing southern mountain caribou herds, 32 per cent of which have become extirpated since 2016.
READ: B.C. timber agency halts new logging on caribou land near Revelstoke
This includes logging deferrals, which the province has been working on with First Nations since 2021 to pause work in vulnerable old-growth forests. In May 2025, for example, BC Timber Sales told Wildsight it was halting all new development across a wide area of critical caribou habitat in the Revelstoke-Shuswap region spanning likely tens of thousands of hectares.
Parmar was critical of caribou for how they grow “spooked” when disturbed and exhaust substantial energy running away over long distances.
“That’s usually one of the reasons that leads to their demise, and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve had to defer harvesting in different parts of the province, because they need a vast area of land,” he said. “Not the smartest animal, that’s for sure.”
But mountain goat, grizzlies and other large mammals have similarly been documented in B.C. fleeing across mountains and a number of kilometres when disturbed by humans, sometimes to the detriment of their own survival.
The minister also claimed that B.C. forestry today is creating far fewer cutblocks than a “1950s-style” clear-cut logging he described.
In reality, between 79,000 and 252,000 ha of Crown land forest (199,000 on average) were harvested annually between 1987 and 2023, the vast majority of which was done by clear-cutting. Less partial cutting has also been happening than in the 1980s and ’90s, according to data from the province.
Parmar said mills have a responsibility to design their cutblocks so more “retention” is left of forests and old-growth areas are protected.
“I’m happy to have conversations with anyone about the need to maintain and protect our old forests while also ensuring, at the same time, that we have a timber harvesting land base that can support our operations here,” Parmar said, when asked about protecting old-growth areas near Revelstoke such as the Rainbow-Jordan Wilderness.
“What I wouldn’t support is just saving land for the sake of saving land, and seeing mills close down.”
READ: Biologists call on Revelstoke to help protect unique old-growth wilderness
Reflecting on how British Columbians advocate for old-growth protection today, Parmar recalled formerly being an environmental activist while in high school and also a member of the Ancient Forest Alliance and Sierra Club BC.
“I have all the time in the world for people who are passionate about our forests,” he said. “What I don’t have time for is people who chain themselves up to trees and do so to disrespect First Nations.”
From his view, the heart of B.C.’s environmental movement had long been getting First Nations to the table to engage on forest extraction in their traditional territory. Today, he claimed they’re being engaged more often.
Parmar invited British Columbians to walk in the shoes of forestry workers, and consider the balance of supporting the lumber industry while also prioritizing biodiversity and ecology.
“It is no easy task striking that balance,” he said. “After this interview, I go on Facebook and someone’s saying, ‘Parmar, you’re cutting too many trees down,’ and another person’s saying, ‘Parmar, you’re not cutting enough trees down.’”
From Revelstoke, Downie Timber sends its wood to a variety of markets. Hemlock goes to Alberta, spruce helps builders in Japan with interiors and trusses, and clear lumber supports the U.K.’s market. Cedar isn’t widely used for B.C.’s housing market, but it still has value in the province for exterior finishings.
Mill manager Angus Woodman said in February that it’s difficult to focus on competing in the Canadian market without driving up lumber prices. This is partly why Downie Timber sends up to 60 per cent of product to the U.S. and sells as little as 20 per cent within Canada.
For Parmar, there’s huge potential to further expand B.C.’s lumber market into Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. He said this requires transitioning away from a decades-old tradition of targeting the U.S.
“If we want to be just a jurisdiction that provides commodity dimensional lumber to Americans, we will continue to fail time and time again,” Parmar said. “We have to structurally change our sector.”
READ: A walk in the woods with Revelstoke Community Forest Corporation
He commended mills such as Golden’s Pacific Woodtech for managing to dodge export duties thanks to being “value-added” companies, and applauded Gorman Group for hiring more staff in communities, including Revelstoke, to maintain more shifts and ensure minimal downtime in production.
Parmar toured Downie Timber on his Revelstoke visit and had a pint at Rumpus Beer Co. on Tuesday evening, before meeting with city council Wednesday, June 10. He said he was engaging local Ministry of Forests staff, too.
“I apologize to the people of Revelstoke that it’s taken me a year-and-a-half to get here, but I’m deeply grateful for the opportunity,” he said. “Forest is a deeply-emotional topic for so many, and I welcome that.”
<!– TEGIK ZQ uhmdOjPEvgQrOMHdszW –>