The province is pushing for the use of mass timber in construction but it hasn’t affected the forest industry just yet in at least one Kamloops area town.

Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell appeared on the NL Morning News and was asked if the province had given any indication of getting mass timber from the area.

“Nope, not at this point,” he said, though admitting he’s not that shocked by it.

“I’m really not seeing a lot of action on the forestry front and I think a lot of it sort of stalled because of the uncertainty of COVID as far as you know, land transfers and purchases and things like that but you know, I mean the world is on a permanent hold pattern right now until it isn’t so I’m not terribly surprised.”

He did say he has been talking to people in the industry.

“I had a conversation with Interfor talking about improvements to the Agate Bay Road so that more logger contractors in the North Thompson can get their nine-foot-six versus eight-foot wide bunks down to Adams Lake to keep these guys employed up here.”

Blackwell is optimistic about other things happening in the area, saying they remain hopeful that more local jobs appear with the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project.

“We’re seeing a lot of local contractors and their employees that haven’t been put a loop and that would really help out here and you know that project is just starting to gear up here,” he added. “So, that cans solve a lot of problems for, I’m hearing 30 months now, but it’s a mixed bag in Clearwater at this point.”

He says there is a bit of irony to all of this as there is actually a worker shortage in Clearwater’s service industry.

“It’s a weird thing going here right now. I’ve got restaurants that can’t open fully because they can’t get enough employees, including their employees that are on CERB,” Blackwell added.

“I’m hoping some of the new CERB restrictions on July 1st kicks some of them back to their regular jobs.”