The Province is encouraging the use of mass timber in the construction industry with the hope of breathing life back into our beleaguered forest sector.
Parliamentary Secretary for Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations Ravi Kahlon has been given task of overseeing the expansion of use of mass timber in BC buildings.
On the NL Morning News, he was asked if it can help communities that have seen mass closures like Chasm and Vavenby.
“Well I certainly hope so. I mean, I’m not going to say that next week we’re going to have CLT facilities or mass timber facilities pop up,” he said.
While optimistic, Kahlon admits there’s many factors at play.
“There’s a whole host of things we have to address. We have to address training, opportunities for workers to be able to participate in this? How do we develop the skill for carpenters, technicians, engineers, architects to do the work that we need to do?” he added.
“We have to look at the supply and demand. How do we encourage more supply to come on line of mass timber? And, how do we also create that demand by building public buildings with mass timber? Encouraging residential developers to also use mass timber so all of these things are things I’ll be looking at.”
Mass timber could be a game changer, Kahlon says, pointing out engineering and architectural firms from BC are using mass timber in their designs in the United States and as far away as Japan.