The ‘Reckoning’ Coming for BC Logging Licences

By Ben Parfitt  – The Tyee

In September 2024, the Tsay Keh Dene Nation and McLeod Lake Indian Band bought a logging licence near the town of Mackenzie from Canfor for $69 million.

It was a hefty price, with one of the happiest sellers being Canfor’s majority owner and British Columbia’s wealthiest man, Jimmy Pattison. And it brought to an end a sorry chapter in the life of the town.

Nearly five years earlier, 187 workers in Mackenzie had lost their jobs when Canfor closed a sawmill in town. But because it had retained the logging licence granted by the provincial government, Canfor had continued to log the forests near Mackenzie and send those logs down the highway for processing in Prince George. The move angered Mayor Joan Atkinson and many of the town’s residents. The news the company had sold the licence brought relief.